Look, everyone, I know this is a subreddit for stories and all that, but Jade's getting questioned and I don't like the way it's headed so here I am to tell you about what the Left Hand Path is and isn't.

And no, I don't personally walk it. I haven't decided on anything yet (still). But I did do a hell of a lot of reading and research when Jade told me what she was so many years ago because I was curious.

I can try to suggest some books also at the end, but bear in mind that not everything you read or hear is going to be 100% fact.

First off, the Left Hand Path encompasses Satanists (theistic and atheistic), Luciferians, Setians, Daemonolators, and Heathens.

Bet you got pissed at Heathens, didn't you? I mean, how dare I group you in with those "devil worshippers" right?

Hello, your own deities are considered devils by Christians firstly. Go on and get mad, argue with me about that too, I don't care. I was friends with a man who was a Heathen and he's the one who told me you fell on that path too, so there.

But why?

I'm going to ask you to do something.

Forget any Hollywood bullshit. Forget the "Satanic Panic" if you're old enough. Forget all of that, because it's not true.

The Left Hand Path is about the development and growth of self. It's about working with the gods and goddesses that present themselves to you to better yourself. It's about looking your Shadow Self in the eye and saying "you're part of me, and I accept that." It's about learning humility.

It's about being a decent fucking human being. Period.

The people who choose this path (or are chosen for this path) aren't criminals. Well, the ones who are serious about it anyhow. There are assholes out there who choose this path to be edgy, but fuck them. They're some of the nicest people I've come across (yeah, I know more than just Jade okay?). They help others as best they're able. They're humanitarians. They take care of the environment. And you may have one (or more) in your own life and not know.

They don't like to advertise what they are.

A lot of the Celtic religions are being accepted nowadays in society, and of course Heathenism is too, but mention that you are a follower of Lilith and people lose their fucking minds. May the gods have mercy on you if you say you're a Satanist. That'll get you burned at the stake even now.

The Left Hand Path doesn't teach hate. It teaches compassion. It teaches understanding. It teaches patience.

Or you get your ass handed to you. It sure as hell isn't for everyone. Probably why I'm still on the fence about everything.

Okay, moving right along here ... the gods and goddesses Jade works with. Aren't they evil? Demons? Devils?

As a friend put it to me, the gods are neither good nor evil. They just fucking are. And that makes a hell of a lot of sense when you think about it. They aren't human, folks. They never were. Sure some of them may keep an eye on things and therefore be more understanding of us measly humans than others, but that doesn't fucking make them human still.

And beyond that, these "demons" were gods first.

Names have power, so I don't like to put original names out there because I don't want anyone reading this thinking they're going to summon someone for shits and giggles. It won't end well for you. They don't like being disrespected, just like the Christian god wouldn't put up with that shit.

For a good 90% of them, maybe more, the names you know them by are not their original names. Lilith was a Sumerian storm goddess. Leviathan is Sumerian also, as is Belial. Lucifer was a Roman god. Azazel was a Sumerian god also, a god of war. Stolas was more in line with Celtic times, and Raum I haven't been able to trace back yet. Yeah, I made a point to look at specifically the ones Jade has named. Like I said, I was curious. She works with another death god also, who originated somewheres around the same time as the Norse but he's not part of the Norse pantheon. And she has never ever told me his original name. So to me, he's just Ve (with that carat over the e, can't do it through the goddamn browser).

She's reached out to others though throughout the years. The Morrigan, Bast, Sekhmet, even Set and Loki.

So, you want to do some reading?

"Lords of the Left Hand Path" by Stephen Flowers is a decent book. I actually have that one. The others I've borrowed from friends, so I'm just going to give you some authors' names.

Michael Ford has a lot of books out. He leans more heavily toward blending certain ones together, but he's okay.

Stephanie Connolly is another who has a lot of books out there, but be careful with her. You can find some of her stuff online.

Speaking of online, you can find a shit ton of reading material online, but be careful with it. Check sources against one another - they don't always agree and sometimes they don't even give you the truth of things.

So there you go, my little write-up on the Left Hand Path and a few of who you can find on it.

But please do yourselves a favor. Don't fuck with the gods of this path. I mean it. You gotta be willing to commit and have a goddamned backbone to work with them. They will test you repeatedly. You'll do a lot of soul retrieval. You'll have to come face-to-face with your trauma. You can't just "try them on" and then leave. Plenty of other paths for you to do that with - don't do it with this one. These are ancient, primordial gods and they won't tolerate your bullshit.

More talk of rape, and consent violations. There's your warning for this chapter.

I woke up in bed nude, to the sound of my shower running. At first, I didn’t know what was going on – where were my clothes and just who the hell was in my shower? Brow furrowed, I sat up in bed slowly, realizing I was sore in some places I didn’t need to be sore. “How much did I drink and who the fuck did I bring home?” I wondered, starting to feel unease creep down my spine. Spotting my robe, I slid out of bed shakily and pulled it on, wrapping it around me securely to make my way over to the bathroom.

Buer had stepped out for a second, and upon returning to my room to find me attempting to make my way over to the bathroom he shook his head. “This will never do,” he murmured, exerting a tiny spell to knock me out again. Scooping me up before I hit the floor, he put me right back to bed, removing the robe and covering me up again. Methodically he checked what he had been working on healing, finding most of it well on its way to being healed. The bites and the damage from the rape were all that was left, and he had the feeling those were just going to take time.

Devlin came out of the bathroom moments later, hair damp and clad in just a pair of black cotton pajama bottoms, and at once his gaze went to me. “How is she?” he asked quietly.

“Well, she almost caught you nude,” Buer answered. “I had stepped out to get a breather and returned to find her out of bed and halfway to the bathroom door. I’m afraid I underestimated her and didn’t use a strong enough spell to keep her under.” When Devlin’s expression didn’t waver from that intense, brooding stare, he sighed. “The bite marks and the damage from the rape are just going to take time, I’m afraid. I’ve done all I can for her.”

Nodding silently, Devlin settled on the chair beside the bed. “Thank you,” he murmured. “You’ve done all you can, and that’s what counts, Buer.”

“And this is what comes of my arrogance,” Devlin muttered darkly. “I knew I should have followed her home. This will never happen again.”

It was in the early hours of morning when I woke up again, feeling more disoriented than I had before. Finding the lamp on by the bed, I turned toward it to discover Devlin sitting in a chair beside the bed with my netbook. Since he was distracted, I took advantage of the moment to study his very bare upper torso avidly. That turned out to be a bad idea because the second need tightened my abdomen the damage from the rape made itself known.

Instantly the netbook got set aside, and Devlin moved from the chair to sit on the side of the bed. “How badly do you hurt?” he asked softly, his hand resting gingerly on my shoulder.

“I’ll live,” I answered, thinking. “Who all is here?”

“Just me,” he replied. “Red and Raithe were here for a time, but they went home.” He didn’t add that the Elves had been there also and had to be forcibly chased off, not seeing the need.

I nodded, accepting his answer. Meeting his eyes, I blinked once. “Where is he?”

Devlin considered his answer for a split second. “He has been dealt with, Autumn,” he told me. “He will not be back again, of that I can assure you.”

Now I could relax. Lying back down, I turned onto my back, so I could see Devlin better. “Knew I should have just invited you home with me,” I muttered.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, curious.

I sighed, looking away. “I don’t know you yet, and I didn’t want you thinking I was just another whore,” I replied. “I was afraid you might think the only reason I asked you was just to fuck. I mean, look what happened at the fucking bar. I still don’t understand that.”

He couldn’t help the faint smile. “Well, it wasn’t a reaction I expected either,” he told me. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen before, in fact.” He paused, thinking. “Autumn, what … why him? After seeing the other men you dated, he just doesn’t fit in.”

“I don’t really know, Devlin,” I answered honestly. “I wasn’t even looking for anyone when he came along. I wasn’t that attracted to him either. It just … happened somehow.” I laughed weakly. “Boy, I must have an invisible asshole magnet on me somewhere. Seems like ninety-nine percent of the guys I’ve dated have been utter and complete bastards. Well, maybe not that high a percentage, but still. I think I’ll just stay fucking celibate. Contrary to what Red thinks, I do know what a vibrator is for. “

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if he could watch, but he thought better of it. Instead, he changed the subject. “How much ink do you actually have?” he asked. “I saw the unicorn and the two symbols.”

I couldn’t help the strange look I gave him at his wording. “Symbols?” I quizzed archly.

Devlin dredged up his best innocent look, wondering if he could even pull it off. “Well what are they, then?” he countered.

Fine, we’ll play this your way then, I reflected. “They are sigils,” I said pointedly, one eyebrow raised. “Belial’s, and then Azazel’s and … Lucifer’s, unfortunately. I also have some Latin on me, proclaiming me as … his.”

“Why do you have Lucifer’s name and sigil on you, Autumn?” he asked, fighting to stay detached. This wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as he had thought. “You also didn’t answer my original question.”

“Pushy bastard,” I muttered, trying to read past those dark-green pools and failing. “Because I was stupid. I followed him for a time, and that’s sort of how I wound up with Dmitry. When I realized what they were really like, I kicked them both out and became Belial’s priestess instead. Satisfied?”

I snorted. “I don’t believe in doing things the easy way,” I said. “Why him? Belial has been good to me, unlike other deities.” I moved my pillows to prop up against them, folding my arms over my chest. “I wanted someone who would have my back if shit really went wrong. I wanted someone who would return what I gave. I wanted a deity that gave a fuck about me beyond just taking my devotion for granted. Belial doesn’t take me for granted. Neither do his companions. Of course, I don’t ask for that much either … or at least I don’t think I do.”

“Makes sense,” Devlin remarked softly.

“What are you, Devlin?” I asked. “You don’t feel like anything at all. No one has been able to pick up anything from you. What are you and why are you here?”

He should have known I’d ask him that, though he doubted even if he’d expected the questions he’d have been able to answer them any easier. “I’m human, Autumn,” he answered. “I’m here because I’m needed – at least temporarily. I honestly hadn’t planned on sticking around, but I may. It’s not like I have any obligations to anyone or anywhere.”

Devlin made a derisive noise from his throat, his brow furrowing. “I wasn’t joking about shooting on sight either,” he stated. “What the fuck is so different about me than the Elves? I don’t think I look any different than they do.”

“That’s a matter of perspective too,” I stated. “It isn’t just your looks, Devlin. It’s how you carry yourself. There’s a disturbing trend for women to want men they deem to be assholes. Don’t ask me why, because I haven’t figured that out for myself yet. Now the guys on the other hand … for them, you’re just new. Because unfortunately, almost half the male population here will swing both ways, they’re assuming based on your looks that you will too.” I shrugged. “Do what you have to do. If they can’t accept a simple ‘I don’t fuck men’, well I reckon that shooting a couple would get the point across.”

“I’m starting to think this place is more violent than I was led to believe,” he commented.

I laughed, unable to help it. “You really haven’t had a very good first impression, I’ll give you that,” I conceded. “Be glad you weren’t around a few years back though. At least we ran off some of our worst offenders. The bad part is they worked for us.” I stretched some. “I really would like to get up for a while. I want coffee. Would you please hand me that robe, so I can put it on?”

Devlin didn’t argue with me, snagging the robe from the foot of the bed to hand me and standing up to turn his back so I could put it on.

For a moment, I just sat and stared at his backside. Good fucking grief, I echoed. “Not any better looking than the Elves my ass,” I mumbled, slipping into the robe. Sliding to the edge of the bed, I hesitated for a moment before getting to my feet. The bite marks still ached, and so did the internal damage but at least I wasn’t bleeding. I’d been afraid that once I stood up I’d pour blood. “Fucking bastard,” I muttered, wrapping the robe and tying it securely. “Knew I should have unmanned him that last time.”

“You’ll get no disagreement from me,” Devlin murmured, looking down at me as I moved past him.

I paused in my steps, meeting those eyes. “Welcome to Hell, Devlin,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’ll forgive me for saying I think Hell would be more peaceful than Grey County.”

“You’re probably right,” I conceded, heading out of my room for the stairs. Going down the stairs proved a bit more complicated than I had thought, due to the nature of my injuries, and by the time I reached the first floor I wanted to cry. Refusing to give in to the tears, I made my way to the kitchen with Devlin right on my heels.

Devlin knew I was hurting, but he wasn’t sure how I would react to him just picking me up to carry me. I hadn’t rolled into orgasm from him touching my shoulder, but that meant little. “I realize this comes too late, but I’m beginning to think I should have just offered to make your coffee for you,” he stated, brow furrowed in concern as I leaned against the counter and bit my lip.

I shook my head, a smile forming despite the pain. “Well you know, I could probably use a houseboy,” I teased. “Do you want coffee?”

He took his chances and ushered me over to a chair at the table. “Sit,” he ordered. “I’m perfectly capable of following your instructions on making it while you rest.”

“Pushy,” I muttered but ruined it by grinning. “Fine. Mugs are in the cabinet to the left there. The coffee is in the little tin, and I make mine using milk only. You can do what you want with yours.”

Smirking to himself, Devlin set about making coffee for both of us, very aware of my eyes on him. “How long have you lived here?” he asked, curious. “This house feels … old.”

“That’s because this house has been here for the last four or five centuries,” I told him. “It’s been updated and renovated some, but the actual structure is original.” I paused. “I’ve been a part of Grey County since I was about nine, Devlin. Red is my adopted mother, more or less. There was another, but it’s a long story that you’d have to get from Red since it’s her ex.”

Filing the information away, he finished up the coffee and joined me at the table. As I accepted mine, he took the moment’s distraction to let his eyes fall to where the top of the robe gaped open. The bruises around the bite marks weren’t as bad as they were thanks to Buer, but the fact that they were there at all pissed him off. The situation had gotten entirely too far out of control than he would have liked – it shouldn’t have come to this, or not even close.

I sipped my coffee, my thoughts scattered and disjointed. “You should go home, Devlin, get some rest,” I murmured. It then hit me that he was in pajamas, and I met his eyes. “Wait a second. Why are you in pajamas?”

Yeah, this was going to be a lot harder than he imagined. “Fine,” he muttered. “I called a friend and had them bring me a change of clothes – and these because I’m staying with you like it or not. You’re too badly hurt to leave alone, and no one else would be able to keep your exes at bay while you heal.”

“I didn’t know you’d been here that long,” I murmured, accepting his answer.

Well, I had accepted his answers so far … “A few friends of mine made the move with me, you might say,” he hedged.

I looked at him again, brow furrowed. “I read your file, Devlin,” I told him. “This is only supposed to be a temporary thing for you. Why would your friends come with you if that’s the case?”

“They were bored,” he said. “They enjoy irritating me. I don’t know, Autumn. I tried to talk them out of it, I tried threatening them, and they refused to listen. They insisted this would be entertaining to them, so they came with me whether I wanted them to or not.”

“Why are you so defensive?” I asked, not understanding. “Devlin – people are going to ask you questions. You’re new here. They’re going to want to know who you are, where you’re from, why you’re here, who your friends are … being defensive is not going to help. Besides, I don’t think I deserve the attitude after what I’ve been through.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair and staring at the mug in front of him. “There wasn’t enough time to come up with a back story,” he explained softly. “If I could tell you why I’m here, I would. Believe me, I would. It was only supposed to be me, though, and not four of my companions also. They made that decision on their own, and there was no talking them out of it although I told them their presence would only raise suspicions further. They are stronger than I am and would have gladly joined the department had there been slots open. The only one was the night sergeant, working with you – and I took that one.” Pausing, he met my eyes. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just … I don’t know how to answer you when there’s so much that I just can’t.”

I sighed quietly, sipping at my coffee before reaching across to gently put my hand over one of his. “Alright,” I murmured. “While you’re here, we’ll come up with some kind of background in case the others get nosy. If you want to, that is. Otherwise, you’ll have the reputation of being an asshole. It’s up to you.”

“I think I already have that reputation,” he muttered, drinking his own coffee but not taking his hand away from mine. “We’ll see, Autumn. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’ve got yourself a guardian.”

My eyes wandered over him briefly. “I don’t think I mind,” I expressed. “Red did mention she thought I needed a keeper.”

By Sunday night, I was feeling more like myself and able to get up and down the stairs without wanting to cry. Red and Raithe had called to check on me, and it surprised me that they didn’t just come by. Normally they would have. Passing it off as them being satisfied that Devlin was staying with me, I went on about my business.

I don’t know what it was that drew me into my little herb closet – I really had no reason to want to go in there, but I wound up going in anyhow. The first glance around showed nothing out of place or missing, but a second look showed me I was wrong in my initial assessment. The nausea medication I had was gone – the bottle was completely empty. “What in fucking hell?” I muttered, stunned. It just didn’t make any sense to me, that it would be completely empty.

“Something wrong?” Devlin asked, lounging gracefully in the doorway. “What is all this anyhow?”

“I’m one of the county’s licensed herbalists,” I explained. “I try to keep a supply of pretty much everything under the sun – someone has depleted my nausea meds though.” I sighed, shaking my head. “It makes no sense to me that someone would have taken the whole fucking bottle.”

Devlin studied me for a moment, remembering something Raithe had said. “Raithe did tell me the county had three medics working patrol,” he said. “I’m going to wager Red is one of the others.”

I nodded. “Red and Rhi,” I confirmed. “Damn. Who the fuck took it?”

“When was the last time you were in here?” he asked, curious.

“Mm, Finn came by a few days before you showed up …” I stopped, looking up at Devlin. “Has that Elf been here?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say for certain who was and wasn’t here Friday night,” Devlin answered softly. “I was a bit busy with you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “It’s not like I can’t make more, after all. I just wished I’d been asked first.”

The next few hours were spent with him browsing through the library and working on something on my netbook, and me doing some light cleaning and laundry. If I’d been more observant, I would have noticed something was off with him, but because I wasn’t used to him I just passed it off. He wasn’t talkative, even with me, so I paid it no attention and went on doing what I needed to do.

After I’d gotten the laundry put away, I stopped by the library to poke my head in. “Hey, since I live on coffee I’m going to make some – do you want any?” I asked, taking an involuntary step back at the look he favored me with. “Okay, then,” I muttered, turning to walk away.

Devlin sighed heavily, setting the book aside he’d been scanning through. “Damn it,” he swore, running a hand through his hair and mulling over how to approach me now. He really hadn’t meant to give me that look, but the queasiness was getting worse by the minute. Muttering under his breath, he got up and headed down the stairs to attempt to smooth things over with me.

I was stirring my coffee when I felt him walk up behind me and couldn’t help the twitch when he touched me.

That bothered him. “Autumn, I’m sorry,” he apologized, brow furrowed as I turned around to look up at him. “It wasn’t you. I’m sorry.”

The temptation to just wrap myself around him was too strong to resist. Setting my mug down, I sighed quietly and moved to put my arms around his waist. Resting my cheek against the warmth of his chest, I just stood like that and breathed him in.

It was the first time I’d touched him, and for a moment he didn’t know how to react. The feel of my warm, soft form pressed against him was … oddly comforting, and not half as awkward as he feared it would be. Slowly he reached to draw me closer, dropping his head to rest his cheek against the top of my head.

If I could have stayed like that forever, I probably would have. But I was too tempted to take things further than just holding him, and that didn’t need to happen. I didn’t know him, and I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. “Did you want coffee?” I asked, pulling away reluctantly to eye him inquisitively.

Devlin was surprised by how disappointed he felt at the loss of contact with me, and he wasn’t quite able to cover it up in time. “I … think I’d forgotten what it felt like to hold someone,” he murmured, not quite meeting my eyes. “Coffee would be welcome, though, if you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind?” I asked, turning away to fix a mug for him. “Your presence has kept all my annoying exes at bay.” When I turned back around to look at him, I found him standing there with the strangest look on his face. “Devlin. What’s wrong?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Not much of an answer I realize, but it’s the only one I can give you. This whole situation just seems to have me … out of sorts.”

I studied him a bit more closely, and now I saw the signs of exhaustion. “You need sleep, sweetheart,” I murmured. “When you finish this coffee, I want you to go lie down. I have sedatives if they’re needed.”

“In other words, you won’t hesitate to knock me out,” he teased, a faint smile forming. “Alright. If you promise to behave and not take off anywhere, I’ll see about getting some rest.”

Naturally, I gave my word, though I did intend to keep it. After he finished the coffee, he headed up the stairs to bed and I headed for the library to catch up on my email and such until time for me to lie down. We both had to return to our shift tomorrow evening. I just hoped it would go smoothly.

Monday evening saw us both back at the jail, and I paused to speak to Red while Devlin headed on to the office we shared. I couldn’t help the look I cast after him, unable to keep from noticing he still looked off. Maybe later I could pin him down and see if he’d tell me what was really bothering him. Probably not, as secretive as he was, but it couldn’t hurt any to try. After catching up with Red I headed to the office also and walked in just in time to watch as Devlin doubled up at his desk to vomit into the trash can. “Oh, shit,” I swore, freezing for a moment. “Devlin, I’ll be right back. Don’t worry about cleaning up, okay? I’m gonna close the door so no one will bother you,” I told him, leaving the office and closing the door behind me to run over to the infirmary.

Grabbing up some towels and a damp cloth, I hunted through the fridge and fished out the Phenergan with a wry smile. Something told me he wasn’t going to appreciate the method of administration, but hopefully, he wouldn’t protest too much. I was also going to insist he go home – and take him myself to make sure he followed my directions.

Thankfully no one had gone past the office or had seen me run to the infirmary and back, so I didn’t have to worry too much about my shift or Red’s being too nosy. Slipping through the door, I closed it again behind me and settled on the edge of his desk by his head. “Here, honey, look up at me,” I murmured, waiting for him to slowly raise his head so I could wipe his face off. “You look like death, Sergeant.”

Devlin blinked, too nauseous to argue with me and finding that – for the moment – he enjoyed my attention.

I tossed a towel over the trash can for the moment and set the soiled cloth aside. Regarding the Phenergan I’d stuck in my pocket, I sighed heavily and met his eyes. “I think we’ll wait about this,” I expressed. “Can you manage to get to my car without raising suspicion? I’m taking you home, Devlin. You’re too sick to run the shift tonight.”

“Fine,” he muttered, getting to his feet to follow me.

Red gave me a curious look as I walked through with Devlin beside me, but at the look I shot her she instantly knew she’d best not ask anything in front of the others. Luckily my shift was too busy discussing their weekend antics to notice I was leaving with Devlin, so that took care of that. After unlocking and opening the door so he could get in, I got in on my side and made a quick call to Raithe. “Hey, look, Devlin won’t be on shift tonight, so see if you can get Rhi or Van to keep an eye on things for me,” I expressed. “No, no, no – I’ve got it covered. That’s why I want Rhi or Van on my shift. I’ve got to try to get this stomach virus under control before I can take over again. Thanks, Raithe.”

I nodded. “I have two,” I answered. “The Outback, and this. I only drive the Diablo when the weather will allow for it though.” I smirked. “There isn’t a fucking thing in the county that can outrun me either.”

He considered me for a moment. “I think I could pace you on my bike,” he murmured, grimacing at another wave of nausea. “Shit.”

Quickly I tossed the two towels into the floorboard, glad I had brought them. “I’ll understand if you lose your stomach again before we get to the house,” I told him. “Good grief, sweetheart. When did this start?”

“Earlier … today,” he managed to get out before leaning forward to retch uncontrollably. There was nothing left in his stomach to come up, but that only made things worse on him.

“Hell,” I murmured, heading for the house as fast as I could without jarring him. So, it looks like it was him who took the meds – but why didn’t he ask, or tell me? Damned stubborn men and their fucking pride, I swear.

Once we arrived, I ushered him out of the car and straight up the stairs to my room. Not thinking anything of it, I started stripping him of his gear so he could lie down, completely ignorant to the startled look he was giving me. When I reached to unfasten his pants and he moved to stop me, I gave him a cross look. “You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before,” I stated.

“Pushy,” he murmured, allowing me to undress him completely. The look on my face when I finally saw him nude was well worth it anyhow. “Thought I didn’t have anything you hadn’t seen before,” he teased, the humor leaving him abruptly when my eyes met his and he saw the heat behind them.

“No, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before, Devlin,” I stated again. “I just wasn’t expecting this, is all.” Taking a deep breath, I fished out the Phenergan. “This is for nausea. I apologize for how it’s administered, but you don’t have much choice since you’re vomiting.”

Devlin couldn’t help the incredulous look he gave me. “You expect me to willingly do this?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Well, you can take it, or I can pin you down and give it to you,” I countered. “What’s it going to be?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I find that laughable,” he expressed. He didn’t find it so funny when he found himself pinned against the edge of the bed with one arm drawn up tight behind him and my legs locked tightly around his, so he couldn’t move. “Autumn, I’m warning you – you really don’t want to force the issue with me. I did not agree to this.”

“Whether you agreed or not, you’re too goddamned sick to just leave alone,” I retorted, spitting into my hand to rub it over his tightly-clenched opening. Using my teeth to carefully peel open the Phenergan, I stuck my finger into my mouth to wet it and then inserted the medicine deep into the heat of his body.

How he managed to not lash out at me for the violation of his body, he didn’t know. Or maybe he did know, and he just didn’t want to look too closely at it right now. Panting, he remained against the edge of the bed and refused to look at me, his spine still crawling from the sensation of my finger penetrating him. “God damn you,” he spat, memories rising to eat at him. “I fucking told you no, you bitch!”

“If that’s how you’re going to be when I’m only trying to help you, I’m going back on my shift and you can go the hell home,” I retorted, and walked out of my bedroom to do just that. I paused for a moment outside the door to see if he’d change his mind, but when silence met my ears I grit my teeth and went on down the stairs to go back on my shift alone.

After I had left, Devlin all but threw his clothes back on and stalked down the stairs. “Fuck this,” he muttered, walking out the door and calling the Dead Horse to get him the hell out of there. Yes, he’d had feelings for me, but my violating his consent had killed it.

I knew he was gone. Where he had gone to, I didn’t know, but I knew he was gone and that he probably wouldn’t be back again. I had wounded his pride, after all.

For once my shift ran smoothly. The guys didn’t give me a hard time, didn’t tease me at all. They did their job without a hitch – even Cliff, who had been giving me fits with his stupid tricks. I knew they wanted to ask me what was wrong, but they knew better. For that I was thankful.

I didn’t go to Ian’s that Friday night. I didn’t think I wanted to be around all of them when I was so unsettled. Instead, I stayed home, turning my phone off and burying myself in books I had meant to read but not gotten around to. I quickly found out that reading didn’t help my frame of mind either.

Why the hell was I so angry anyhow? What the hell had that bastard done to me? Just because he’d gotten me off by touching my leg didn’t mean anything. And just because he’d taken care of my shithead of an ex meant little too. Let’s not mention him staying with me to make sure no one bothered me while I healed from my injuries.

“Oh, fuck,” I swore, throwing the book across the room. “Fuck! God damn you to Hell, Devlin Black! Fucking goddamned asshole!”

I did the only thing I knew to do. I got dressed, grabbed the keys to the Diablo, and hit the road. Maybe driving would take the edge off enough that I didn’t want to cry. I doubted it, but what the hell could it hurt?

My cell rang a few times – probably the night shift calling to see if I was alright since I wasn’t prone to doing shit like that. Rather, I hadn’t done it in a long time. I didn’t answer, needing to channel the rage and hurt into my driving and the road rather than one of my friends trying to convince me to pull over and stop trying to kill my damned fool self.

Raithe was still at Ian’s with Red, Magpie, Trist, Hiren, and Aerik when Rhi called to let him know I’d decided tonight was a great night to remind myself of just how quick the Diablo was. “Oh, son of a bitch,” he swore, pulling on his ponytail. “Well, it’s not like anyone can catch her ass, Rhiannon. Hell, let her run, just keep an eye on her. Maybe she’ll be alright.”

Red furrowed her brow, concerned. “Run? What the hell is going on, Raithe?”

“Oh, not much, Ambrose, just Autumn throwing a tantrum,” he replied, swearing under his breath. “Apparently she’s not answering her cell or her radio either, which naturally concerned Rhi. It isn’t like she does this shit all the time – and I think I’m glad of it.”

The sheriff sighed, shaking his head. “I’ve got no idea,” he answered softly. “I’ve got no fucking idea. And it isn’t like I can just make a couple of phone calls and straighten this shit out.”

Red nodded. “What would you say anyhow? We don’t know what happened.”

“No, and we don’t want to know, do we?” Raithe countered, looking up at her.

She shook her head at once. “No,” she said. “Normally, yeah, I’d try to find out but … oh, fuck no. Not this time. Like I told Magpie, and I fucking meant it: I don’t want him pissed at me. I’m staying the fuck out of this.”

Aerik moved closer to them, having heard bits and pieces of the conversation. Hearing Raithe talk about me and then not being able to call someone had caught his attention, as had the whole bit about not wanting to know what happened. “Raithe, what’s wrong with Autumn running up and down the highway like a maniac that you would need to call someone for?” He smirked. “We knew she was nuts, she just blends in with the rest of us.”

“That’s on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know,” Red told him. “Leave it alone, Aerik. You’ll be better off, trust me.”

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Belial muttered, watching Devlin pace the floor and mutter under his breath. “I knew I should have said no, leave things alone. Now look.” Sighing heavily and shaking his head, he walked over to Devlin and braced himself for a fight. “You’re going back to her, Devlin.”

“Like fucking hell I am,” Devlin spat, glaring at him.

Molten amber eyes locked with dark-green. “You are going back,” Belial told him firmly. “If you had just shown up, taken care of that fucking thing she was dating, and then gone on about your way things would be different, but no … you had to create this fucking bullshit fucking alias that everyone saw right through, by the way, become part of their little group, and let her fucking get attached to you!” He sharpened his look, folding his arms across his chest. “You are going right goddamned back to Grey County, right back as her fucking sergeant, and you are going to play nice and fix this shit, because if you don’t and I have to step in”—

Belial shook his head. “If she tries to unman you, it’ll be because of your shitty attitude and for no other reason,” he expressed and sighed heavily. “It isn’t just me she’s important to, and you know that. You just don’t want to admit it. You need to make up your mind, Devlin. She’s not going to wait, and there’s a line of others who’d be more than grateful to take your place.”

Those green eyes narrowed. “They’re not good enough,” he muttered and was gone.

“Well you’d better pray that you are,” Belial murmured. “Bloody fucking hell, why does he have to be so fucking stubborn?”

“Should we return also to keep an eye on things?” Lilith asked, approaching slowly.

Belial shook his head. “No, not this time,” he answered. “I’m not worried about her anyhow. She can hold her own.”

She smirked. “Do you think she’ll be glad to see him again?”

“Lilith, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near when he shows back up,” Belial replied honestly, unable to keep from smiling despite the situation. “He’s got a lot to answer for.”

How about more Autumn/Devlin? Different scenery for them both this time. Welcome back to Grey County Sheriff's Office, where the residents are rowdy and not human ...

My cell phone rang as I was turning into the parking lot at the jail. A glance at the number showed it was Red – had it been anyone else, I probably would have ignored it. “What, I’m here,” I said. “I just pulled in.”

“Brace yourself,” she told me.

“Brace myself for what?” I asked, confused. “Did half of my shift show up in a dress or something?” The guys that worked under me … well, I wouldn’t have put it past them. Hiren, Cliff, Eamon, and Aerik were prone to pranks, and no one was immune.

Red sighed heavily. “You’ve got a new one.” She made an incoherent sound. “Holy hell, do you ever.”

Okay, that worried me. I knew Red – either my new addition was a complete and utter bastard, or he was eye candy. Serious eye candy, if she was staring at him – she was attached and happily so. “Fucking great,” I muttered, getting out of the car. “Alright, thanks. I’m on my way in now.”

Booking was dead quiet when I walked in. Normally I would have found Nara, Red, Rhi, Red’s shift, and my shift sitting or standing around talking, but they weren’t talking tonight. They were all staring toward the hall where Raithe stood talking to my new addition, and I do mean staring. Sighing quietly to myself, I moved past them and got my first look at him. “Oh, good grief,” I muttered.

He was wearing solid black, which meant that I now had a sergeant under me. That wasn’t the issue. That I could handle. He was at least a foot taller than I was, but again, that wasn’t a problem either. I was used to being the shortest one on the force now. His back was to me, but damn … if the front matched what I was looking at now, eye candy wasn’t going to touch him. That flaming red hair made a nice contrast to the stark black of the uniform …

I swore off men, I echoed. I swore them all off. Not interested. Don’t want one. Don’t need one. I’m going to personally murder Raithe the first chance I get too. I watched as he shifted his stance slightly, admiring the slight play of muscle through the uniform, and realized his ears weren’t pointed. This is not an Elf. What the hell is he?

“Damn it, Raithe, I know I’m short but jeez, give me a break,” I shot back, moving closer. As I drew closer, the faint scent of sandalwood intermingled with either vetiver or cedar assailed me. Damn, damn, damn …

Raithe smirked at me as I approached. “Need to talk to you alone for a second,” he explained, turning to head to his office.

I sighed, resisting the urge to look up at my sergeant, and headed after Raithe. As I walked in and closed the door behind me, I gave him a cross look. “You should be shot for this, you know that? “

He couldn’t help the slight chuckle. “Sorry, Autumn, but this wasn’t by choice,” he said. “He will, for all intents and purposes, be the night sergeant but that isn’t exactly his purpose here.”

“Undercover?” I asked, curious.

“Something like that, yeah,” he told me. He pushed a folder across the desk for me to browse through, not saying anything else.
I looked over his stats, noting the scores and times. “Pretty impressive,” I murmured

“I thought the same thing,” Raithe told me. “Almost uncanny. I’m wondering if he’s more than he appears to be, Autumn.”

I shrugged, setting the folder down on his desk. “I don’t care,” I stated. “As long as he leaves me alone, I’ll leave him alone.”

“You shouldn’t have any problems,” Raithe said. “Believe me, I warned him what he was getting into. He didn’t bat an eye.”

“Well, we’ll see if he keeps his word,” I countered, raising an eyebrow. “Do you know how many men have come onto my shift thinking this little bitty woman won’t bust their balls?”

Raithe sighed, briefly pulling on his ponytail. “Autumn, I really hope you won’t have any problems with this one.” He looked at the clock. “Go brief your shift. He knows what to expect from you.”

I didn’t say anything else, turning on my heel to leave his office and get back to my shift. “I’ve got an enigma working with me, for reasons that I don’t know. Lilith help me.”

When I realized everyone was still staring at him like they’d never seen a man before, I sighed heavily. Might as well break him in right, I reflected. “For fuck’s sake!” I yelled, staring around the room coldly. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you? Don’t you have a fucking job to do? I’d suggest you fucking get to it or hit the fucking clock and go home!” As booking slowly came back to life, I braced myself to turn and face the man beside me. It didn’t help. No fucking wonder they were all still staring at him. My god, you’re pretty, and I don’t usually say that about men, I echoed, staring up into dark-green eyes. “Well, Sergeant Black, I’d say welcome to Hell, but I think that might be a bit cliché,” I expressed.

He smirked. “Possibly,” he murmured. “Is there anything different that I should know about night shift?”

I eyed my four officers over in the corner. “Yeah, the four you’ll be working with just love to play jokes on people,” I replied. “I’m afraid they’ll probably have a field day with you since you’re new here. Other than that, … I generally leave my shift alone unless they need me. Or, unless they fuck something up.”

He studied the four officers for a moment before turning his attention back to me. “How much leniency do I have?” he asked, mulling something over.

“As my sergeant, the only thing that I ask is if you’re going to terminate one of my officers, come to me first,” I replied. “Chances are I won’t argue with you – I just want to know what happened. Other than that, they’re all yours.”

Hell and damnation, I swore silently, seeing the wicked smile. “I’ve got some paperwork to take care of,” I told him. “Get them on the road, Black. I’ll join the lot of you in about fifteen, maybe twenty at the most.”

He nodded silently, and I retreated to the safety of my office to try to get my thoughts back in order. Closing – and locking – the door, I leaned against it with a slightly shaky breath. What the hell is wrong with me? I couldn’t help wondering, not at all comfortable with how my body had reacted to him. I’ve seen and had to work with gorgeous men before – why is this any different?

If you must ask, you really do need your head checked, my subconscious retorted.

I sighed heavily, shaking my head and laughing somewhat ruefully. “Well, isn’t this going to just suck,” I muttered, going to my desk to get the paperwork done.

Amazingly, my shift didn’t try to pull anything with him. I was almost certain that they would, what with him being new. Then again, maybe they were just biding their time.

Of course, with three out of the four being bi, and him looking like he did, maybe they thought they had a chance at catching his eye. I was willing to bet not, personally. Nothing about Devlin suggested he might swing both ways, and I was pretty sure I’d have picked up on something at least if he did.

It was our last night on for a few days, at the end of the shift. I was heading into Booking on Devlin’s heels, and my – no, our shift was already there waiting for day to show up, so they could brief them. As I headed past Hiren and Eamon, Hiren stopped me.

“How do you do it?” he asked, glancing after Devlin.

“How do I do what?” I countered, not understanding his question.

“Autumn,” he said, giving me a look. “Sergeant Black is a walking advertisement for sin itself, or did you miss that somehow?” He gave me a concerned look when I just gave him blank eyes. “Honey, do you need some time off? I’m starting to worry about you.”

I slapped his arm hard, giving him a mock-glare. “Brat,” I muttered. “Remember me swearing off all men? Or did that slip your mind?”

Eamon sighed, shaking his head at me. “I was hoping you might change your mind, what with that working with you now,” he said.

“Why the hell do I feel like my shift is trying to force me into bed with my sergeant?” I asked. “What makes you think he’d want me there anyhow? Did you stop to consider that?”

Hiren and Eamon exchanged a meaningful look like I was missing something important, and Hiren put his hand on my shoulder. “Have it your way, Autumn.” He smirked. “If you really aren’t interested, maybe I’ll see how he feels about dirty blonds.”

I started to warn him off but thought better of it. After all, Hiren had been teasing me for the last four months if not longer. Payback was a bitch, as they say … “You just go right ahead,” I said, smiling sweetly as I turned on my heel to head to the office I now shared with Devlin. Still wearing the smile, I sat down at my desk to finish up my paperwork for the shift and ignored the strange look Devlin gave me.

Hiren appeared in the doorway a few seconds later, lounging against the door frame. “Ah, Sergeant, I was wondering something,” he began.

Devlin saw me compress my lips and realized I was fighting not to laugh. Sighing quietly, he turned to look at Hiren. “What, Kavanaugh?” he asked, sure he was probably going to regret it.

Hiren raised an eyebrow, his gaze falling over Devlin. “Would you care to join me for a few drinks sometime?”

I lost it. I laughed until my sides and my cheeks hurt, earning myself a cross look for my efforts. “Look, I’m sorry but I’ve never seen anyone shut him down like that,” I explained, wiping away tears. “He had that coming. In answer, yes, he did. Hiren, Eamon, and Cliff are all bisexual.” I paused. “Maybe I should have warned you about that, but I didn’t foresee them having the balls to try hitting on you. I was wrong, at least in Hiren’s case.”

“What’s so funny?” Red asked, walking into the office and propping on my desk.

I giggled. “Hiren tried to hit on Devlin,” I answered, grinning as Devlin swore under his breath and shook his head.

“Is he crazy?” Red exclaimed, and then shook her head. “Never mind. We are talking about the same man who thought it would be a great idea”—

“Let’s not finish that please,” I interrupted quickly, glancing over at Devlin. “I don’t think my poor sergeant needs to know just how sick these guys are.” I made a face. “Hell, I’ve worked with them for the last decade and there’s times I wish I didn’t know.”

Red sighed, shaking her head. “Nara and Rhi are right,” she muttered. “Autumn needs her head checked.”

“Why?” Raithe asked, poking his head in out of curiosity.

“Look what the hell she’s working with, Raithe,” she said. “How the hell does she do it? There’s no way I could.”

Raithe sighed, one eyebrow rising. “You have a point there,” he conceded. “I don’t go that way and even I stared when he showed up.” He tilted his head to one side. “Is her ex really gone, Red?”

Red growled. “The son of a bitch had better be gone,” she expressed tightly. “So help me, I’ll find a way to kill him if he shows back up.”

“No kidding,” Raithe murmured. “I think the entire department would back you on that. I know that I would. Piece of shit.”

“She said she changed the locks on the doors and windows, put different wards up,” Red told him. “I still don’t trust the bastard, Raithe. He was way too quiet when she told him to fuck off. You know how jealous he was.”

Raithe nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember all right,” he said. “Guess we’ll just have to try to keep an eye on her, make sure he doesn’t come back to try anything.” He looked at Red, mulling something over. “Looks aside, what do you think of Black?”

Red furrowed her brow. “I think there’s more to him than we’re seeing,” she stated bluntly.

“That’s the same thing I told Autumn,” Raithe expressed.

“I’m with you on this,” she told him. “There’s definitely more to his story than we’ve been given.”

“Yeah,” Raithe muttered. “I’ll see you guys tonight. Maybe we’ll all get lucky and Autumn will show up in something other than solid black. Maybe we’ll get even luckier, and she’ll remember men aren’t so bad after all.”

Everyone except Devlin was there when I finally showed up. The exclamations of surprise when I walked in made me sigh heavily and shake my head as I headed for the corner section of the bar to sit by Red. “Are you assholes happy now?” I asked loudly. “I wore some color. Don’t get used to it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, why break tradition?” I called back, nodding my thanks as he sat a bottle of Guinness in front of me.

The door opened again then, and I glanced over to see who was joining us. “Fuck,” I muttered, staring outright as Devlin walked in.

He was wearing the same shade of green that I was, paired with very snug black breeches and boots. There was a helmet in one hand, and his red hair was loose, framing that perfectly sculpted face and setting off those startling, dark-green eyes.

I shook my head, unable to take my eyes off his tall, lithe form as he approached us. “Don’t let me do anything stupid please,” I pleaded.

Noting the empty seat beside me, Devlin settled on it gracefully and set his helmet on the bar. “We seem to have similar tastes,” he commented, looking at my shirt. His eyes fell upon the sigil I wore then – Belial’s sigil – and one scarlet eyebrow rose ever so faintly. Well, now, he reflected. I see I’ll have to exercise a bit more caution. The result should be … worth it, however.

“Apparently,” I murmured, drowning in his scent and the virility he gave off.

“So, you’re Autumn’s new sergeant,” Thann expressed, smiling faintly.

Devlin eyed the Elf for a moment, scanning him quickly and categorizing him as the trouble-maker. “What of it?” he countered mildly.

Thann looked startled, having not expected to be met with an attitude. “That sort of attitude won’t make it around here,” he told him. “That sort of attitude may even get you hurt.”

“Naethannyel Baine, you will not threaten my fucking sergeant,” I hissed, glaring at him. “Just because you’re pissed that you had to be forcefully removed from my shift doesn’t give you the right to take it out on everyone else, and furthermore I won’t tolerate it. Are we clear?”

I started to get out of my chair when Devlin put his hand firmly on my upper thigh, effectively stilling me.

“Would you like to step outside with me and find out?” Devlin asked him calmly, not moving his hand from my leg. Truth be told, he rather liked how I felt.

Shock didn’t cover how I felt when the feel of his hand on my thigh pushed me straight into orgasm. I don’t know how I sat there and didn’t make a sound, didn’t let on what had just happened. Fighting not to shiver, I very calmly picked up my Guinness and sipped it, not making eye contact with anyone until the last spasm passed.

Thann eyed Devlin for a few seconds longer, seeming to realize the situation he had put himself into. “No,” he replied and turned around to walk out the door.

“Who the fuck invited that little shit?” Red asked, giving the others a hard look. “You all fucking know the history – who the fuck thought it would be a great idea to have him here?”

She sighed, shaking her head and glancing over at me. Spotting Devlin’s hand still resting on my upper thigh, she raised an eyebrow at me.

I didn’t say a word, biting my bottom lip hard as he slid his hand down slightly and I rolled into orgasm again. This time, however, it would be harder to hide. I could feel the puddle under me and wanted to crawl under the bar. Swallowing hard, I leaned over to Red. “I just climaxed from him touching me, and I have no idea what to do,” I breathed.

The look on Red’s face would have been hilarious had the situation not been quite so … delicate. She looked torn between shock and hilarity. In her position, I probably would have looked the same though. I mean, how do you react when your best friend leans over and tells you she just got off from some man putting his hand on her leg?

“Slide forward off the chair and come with me to the bathroom,” she murmured. “Hopefully your pants will … absorb … everything. Otherwise, everyone in here is going to know.”

As she stood up, I started to slide forward off my chair. Started to, I say, because Devlin’s hand migrated toward the inside of my leg and … yeah. Again. This time, there was no hiding it, no covering it up. I swore colorfully, legs locked around the legs of the chair and shuddering all over.

Red looked dead at Devlin, a strange expression on her face. “So, Devlin,” she drawled, aware that everyone at the bar was staring at me in utter shock. “You have this kind of effect on all women?”

I put my head down on the bar, not wanting to look at anyone right then. “Ian,” I called. “You remember me saying I’d never touch tequila again? I lied. Would you please just set the Black Medallion on the bar for me? I think I’m going to need it.” I sighed. “I need a dry towel also, unfortunately.”

Ian just smirked and shook his head, setting the bottle of tequila along with a dry towel in front of me.

Withdrawing his hand from my leg – carefully – and turning toward me, Devlin regarded me in silence for a few seconds. He had not expected me to react to his touch like that, and that I had spoke volumes. His gaze rose to meet Red’s, and he gave her a slightly puzzled look to which she just smirked and shrugged.

“Come on, baby,” she murmured, putting her hand on my back. “Let’s go see if we can get you dried off.”

“I don’t think I can stand up,” I mumbled.

She couldn’t help the chuckle and laughed outright when I flipped her off without looking up. “Hey, Eamon, come here and carry her into the bathroom for me, will you?” she called to the Elf.

Devlin gave her a look. “I could have done that for you,” he expressed.

Red gaped at him for a moment, incredulous that he had even suggested it. “Are you fucking crazy?” she exclaimed. “Devlin – you just had your hand on her leg and she had two orgasms – what the fuck do you think carrying her would do to her?”

“Three, Red,” I corrected softly.

“What?” she yelled, staring at me. “God fucking damn, Autumn! Do I need to hold you down and show you what a vibrator is for?”

“Hey, can I help?” Hiren called, grinning.

“I am going to kill every one of you when I recover,” I expressed.

Devlin said nothing, filing the conversation away to look at later as Eamon walked over to neatly scoop me up out of the chair. Sighing quietly to himself, he picked up the towel to wipe off the chair … only to pause in surprise when he realized it was noticeably wet. He wasn’t positive, but he was fairly sure he was glad he’d locked down his energy. Had he not, there was no telling what would have really happened. There was a good chance it would have involved more than his hand on my leg though.

“Hey, Devlin, what would it take to convince you to hold her on your lap when they bring her back?” Hiren called, serious.

Startled, Devlin turned to stare at the Elf. “Why?” he asked.

Hiren looked at the others, who all nodded. “It’s not going to sound right no matter how I say it, so I’m just going to spit it all out there,” he began. “Autumn told her jealous, controlling, possessive bastard of an ex to fuck off and die four months ago, and she hasn’t touched anyone since then. In case you missed it somehow, the woman is a walking ball of need. I’m thinking maybe a dozen or so orgasms would calm her ass down.”

“So, you think I should be the temporary fix?” Devlin asked, one eyebrow rising.

Aerik shook his head. “What Hiren’s trying to say and not doing a good job of is that Autumn vehemently swore off men four months back due to the … ex. She hasn’t given anyone male a moment’s notice since then, not even briefly.” He finished his drink and met Devlin’s eyes. “I don’t think you’d have to work too hard to become a permanent fixture in her life if you were so inclined. Not with the way she stared at you tonight. Now granted, I don’t know you. I don’t know your situation or your background. I’m just putting that out there, and you can do what you want with it.”

“I’ll go one further than that,” Rhi cut in, leaning back in her chair with her arms folded across her chest. “I’ve known Autumn nearly as long as Red has, and that’s a long fucking time. I’ve been with her. It takes a hell of a lot more than a hand on her leg to get her off, and that is fucking fact. Unless I misheard, you pulled off three. You just think about that.”

“And if I turn out to be a jealous, possessive, controlling bastard also?” Devlin asked, curious.

Those yellow eyes narrowed faintly. “Then you die,” she stated. “Simple as that.”

He laughed softly, opting for a shot of tequila. Oh, I don’t think so, Rhiannon, he thought to himself. No, I don’t think so.

Once we had rinsed and dried my pants, I found I really didn’t want to go back out there. Embarrassment had set in now. I was positive the guys were going to give me mortal hell over what had happened, and I really didn’t want to hear it. But, Red convinced me to go back out with her, stating she’d kick anyone’s ass who even tried to tease me. Personally, I could have done that myself, but what the fuck. I’d let her play the protector tonight.

Surprisingly enough, no one said anything to me about what had happened. Hiren didn’t even give me one of his sly looks. It was like nothing had ever happened. Well, almost. Devlin was still sitting in the same spot, and the way he was looking at me now made me sorely tempted to just climb onto his lap and see what happened. I managed to contain myself, seating myself gingerly and pouring myself a shot. Sighing heavily, I regarded the amber liquid for a second before downing it.

Devlin studied me for a moment, still picking up the faint threads of left-over arousal. “I find myself torn between being sorry, and not being sorry at all for what just happened,” he murmured, honest.

I shook my head. “It’s ok,” I responded. “I can’t explain what just happened anyhow, so don’t worry about it.”

“So, what did that prissy little bastard do to earn getting forcibly removed from your shift?” he asked, curious.

“There was a … question of dominance,” I finally answered, thinking back. “He couldn’t separate work from play, and eventually it came to light that he had a real problem taking orders from a woman.”

“Doubtless, when he saw you he automatically assumed you would be able to take Autumn in hand, and maybe when you left he could pick up where you left off,” Tristan added.

“Well,” Devlin murmured, raising one eyebrow. “Who said I had any intentions of leaving?”

Raithe just looked at him, remembering their conversation as well as what his file said. It was on the tip of his tongue to remind him of that, but no one was supposed to know. Well, he’d told me, but I was the night lieutenant. I needed to know. I was the one working with him.

“Every woman in the county will be out trying to get pulled over,” Aerik muttered, shaking his head.

“Along with probably half the men too,” Cliff added.

I rolled my eyes, pouring a second shot. “First bitch I have to pull over that says she’s looking for the new sergeant, I swear I’m gonna choke her out then and there,” I stated. “I am not spending the entire shift running down a bunch of whores.”

“So, we’ll do it for you,” Cliff quipped, smirking.

The look I shot him should have dropped him where he sat. “Flaherty, you’re on thin fucking ice with me as it is,” I growled. “Don’t push me. You won’t like what you get.”

“So, let me make sure I have this right,” Devlin began, regarding me neutrally. “You’d choke the women looking for me, correct?” At my nod, his brow furrowed. “I could have sworn you said you’d keep the men from hitting on me, Autumn. Does that mean I can just shoot them on sight?”

“Well, shit, I did say that didn’t I?” I said, smirking. Sighing and shaking my head, I poured him a shot and picked up the one I hadn’t touched yet. “Okay, so I’ll just kill anyone looking for you, how’s that? Cheers.”

Hiren groaned, putting his head down on the bar. “Fuck,” he swore. “Fuck.”

“No, sweetheart, that’s not going to happen,” I called, grinning. “Devlin isn’t interested in you, or any other man. I do appreciate the entertainment you provided though. And by the way: payback is a fucking bitch.”

“Is that why you came into the office grinning?” Devlin asked, catching on.

I nodded, laughing. “I apologize for dragging you into it, but the results were well worth it,” I answered. Eyeing the bottle of tequila, I sighed and promptly handed my keys off to Red. “Fuck it. Why waste a perfectly good bottle of tequila? Someone else can drive my drunk ass home tonight.”

“Oh, shit,” she muttered, chuckling and shaking her head. “Hey, Ian, better bring another shot glass this way – ain’t no way I’m letting her drink this by herself.”

“Why isn’t he here?” I inquired, it just now dawning on me that the Elf hadn’t shown up. “Where the fuck is Finn and Russ?” I stood up in my chair. “Where the fucking hell are all the goddamned Elves?”

“The goddamned Elves are right the fucking hell here, now sit down before you fall out of that chair,” Russ called, walking in with his father and brother. “Who let her have the tequila, so I can kick your ass?”

“Hey, she insisted,” Ian replied, throwing his hands up in defeat.

Finn chuckled, shaking his head. “Since when did you start listening to her, Ian?” he asked. “You of all of us know what she’s like once she starts on that stuff. Or should I remind you of the last time?”

Ian smirked. “Since she had three orgasms from her new sergeant putting his hand on her leg?” he offered, laughing as I swore colorfully and put my head down on the bar.

“Fuck,” I swore, sitting up to look at the three – speechless – Elves. “Oh, you heard him right, you just don’t want to believe it,” I said. “He put his hand on my thigh to keep me from kicking Thann’s ass for being his usual spiteful self, and I rolled right through three in a row.”

Kano blinked twice and promptly headed over to Red. “I’m not getting involved in this,” he muttered. “I know better.”

Devlin mulled it over for a moment and finally nodded. “Why not?” he murmured, accepting the bottle to pour himself another shot. Considering I’m virtually immune to all alcohol, it really doesn’t matter, he reflected. He barely glanced up as the black-haired Elf took the seat next to him, aware that he was being measured up and not giving a fuck.

Finn knew there was something more to the male beside him than he was sensing, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He wasn’t Elven, but he was more than simply mortal. Nodding his thanks to Ian as he sat his drink in front of him, the Elf regarded Devlin speculatively. “Where are you from?” he asked, curious.

“I mean no disrespect, but that’s on a need to know basis,” Devlin answered softly, meeting the Elf’s grey eyes.

“Fair enough,” Finn conceded. “Oh, I’m Finn. The redhead is my eldest son, Russ, and the other is my second eldest, Kano. Or Magpie, whichever.”

Devlin downed the shot, finding himself vaguely annoyed by the Elf beside him. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not much on conversation,” he expressed.

“Finn, don’t badger my sergeant,” I said, giving the Elf a cross look. “If he wants to talk to you, he will. If he doesn’t, leave him alone. The poor guy’s had enough to deal with just on our shift and what with Thann being an asshole.” I poured another shot into my glass, downing it. “Not to mention me,” I muttered as an afterthought.

“Autumn, I was just trying to be friendly,” Finn stated. “I’m not Dmitry, you know.”

“Of course, you’re not,” Rhi called sweetly. “If you were, we’d have hunted you down and killed you.”

Hearing Finn say my ex’s name was sobering, and with a sigh, I looked over at Red. “Give me my keys,” I said. “I’m going home.”

She wanted to argue with me, but she knew better. I could handle myself, and it really wasn’t far to my house anyhow. “Call me when you get there,” she said, handing them over.

I nodded and turned to Devlin. “Sorry about all the bullshit, Black,” I apologized. “They usually aren’t this bad with new hires. Unfortunately, I think it’s mainly because you’re my sergeant.”

Devlin studied me for a moment and leaned over into my ear. “After you call Red, call me,” he breathed. “I’m not sticking around once you get out of here. “

Nodding faintly, I shot Finn a dark look and headed out the door. If I’d known how the rest of the night was going to go, maybe I would have stayed – or at least invited Devlin home with me.

Devlin said his goodbyes maybe ten minutes after I’d left, and it was ten minutes after he had left that Red realized I hadn’t called her. “Damn it,” she swore, calling me to make sure I’d made it home. “Answer the phone, Autumn.”

Magpie furrowed his brow, concerned. “Should we head out to see if she ran into problems?” he asked.

When I hadn’t answered on the thirteenth ring, Red swore again and hung up, nodding. “Yeah, we head out,” she expressed tightly. “Raithe, get night shift to check the roads. Autumn’s not answering the phone.”

“You don’t think she has … company … do you?” Eamon hedged. “Black did leave rather abruptly … he’s had well enough time to get to her house.”

“I’ll call him,” Raithe said, and fished out his cell. When Devlin answered, the sheriff floundered for a moment, unsure of what to say. “Eh, sorry, Devlin,” he apologized. “Autumn isn’t answering her phone, and I took a risk that maybe you might have wanted to talk to her alone.”

“I’m on my way to her house,” Devlin stated and hung up, not giving Raithe time to say anything else.

Raithe looked up at Red and the others. “He wasn’t there, but he’s on his way now,” he said.

Red swore colorfully. “This reeks of her ex, Raithe,” she said and glared at Finn. “You would have to talk the son of a bitch up.” Taking a deep breath and running her hand through her hair, she looked at Magpie. “We’re heading to her house also. If that motherfucker is there, Devlin may need a hand in handling him.”

“We might as well all go,” Raithe stated, getting to his feet and heading out the door.

Devlin rolled up to my house at the same time as Lilith, Stolas, Raum, and Belial showed up. All four of his deities stood waiting, expressions shuttered as he removed his helmet. “I don’t know if those she works with will show up or not,” he said softly. “If they do, I’ll handle them. They don’t know all the details on why I’m here and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.” He looked toward the house, his expression grim. “I can only hope he’s still in there with her, and she’s still alive.”

The front door was locked tight, but that wasn’t an issue. They didn’t need a key to get in. Filing through the door quietly, they spread out some in the parlor to get a feel on their surroundings. Judging by the destruction at the foot of the stairs, that’s where I had been ambushed. There was a smashed vase on the floor, and the left railing was missing the carving off the top. A closer inspection of the damage showed a few drops of blood, and not all of it was mine.

Raum’s attention was snared by a soft sound from under the stairs … finding the closed door, he met Belial’s eyes and pointed to said door in question. At the curt nod, he deftly popped the lock – silently – and pushed the door open. With the door open, they could all hear better …

“Did you really believe you could be rid of me that easily? Did you honestly think when you told me you were through with me that I’d just leave? Who the fuck did you think you were dealing with – one of those prissy goddamned Elves? You’re mine, you fucking prick-tease cunt, and I’m not leaving.”

In the blink of an eye, all five of them were down the stairs. And even though they had all known my ex was human, seeing him was a bit of a surprise to them. Dmitry was one of Lucifer’s lackeys. Surrounding him – and cutting him off from my bound, bloodied unconscious form – they allowed their energies to pour forth.

“Are you kidding me?” Raum expressed, staring at Dmitry. “Was she that desperate that she would be with you?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dmitry demanded, looking around at all of them.

“I see you weren’t expecting us,” Belial said. “Too bad, Dmitry.”

Hearing noise from upstairs, Devlin motioned that they had company. “Let me deal with the others,” he murmured, drawing away to head for the stairs – but not without a second look at me to make sure my injuries weren’t life-threatening. “Do what you think is best, Belial. You know I trust the four of you.”

He met Red, Kano, Raithe, Hiren, Eamon, and Russ at the door as they were coming in and he was walking out of the dungeon. Almost he’d forgotten to lock his energy back down… that would have been messy. “I hate to live up to Thann’s appraisal of me, but everyone except Red and Raithe? Get the fuck out,” he ordered.

Kano didn’t bat an eye, understanding that the situation likely warranted the need for as few as possible to see what happened. He kissed Red on the cheek and turned around to walk right back out the door, content to wait in the car until either it was safe to come back in or it was time to go home.

Hiren would have balked, but Devlin outranked him, and he had to work with him. Sighing, he turned around and left also, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Flames ignited in those green eyes as Devlin moved closer to the redhead. “I just fucking did,” he snarled. “Now leave.”

Raithe sighed heavily, looking up at the two Elves. “Will you two stop? This is not the fucking time for a pissing contest! Now get the hell out, or I’ll have you hauled in for obstruction of justice!”

Shooting Devlin distinctly unfriendly looks, Russ and Eamon both turned around to walk out, slamming the door behind them to announce their displeasure.

“Now that everyone is gone, I’m going to ask the two of you to never breathe a word of what you see to anyone – and yes, Red, that includes your partner,” Devlin stated firmly. “I had hoped I wouldn’t be followed over here, but I also have to bear in mind that you have a vested interest in her.”

“Raithe was right, wasn’t he?” Red asked bluntly, folding her arms across her chest to regard mildly. “You’re more than you appear to be.”

Devlin met her gaze evenly. “What do you think, Red?” he countered, turning on his heel to lead them down into the dungeon where the other four still held Dmitry hostage.

“Son of a bitch,” Raithe muttered

Dmitry hadn’t moved, though it did appear he finally realized he was in serious trouble with the four that surrounded him. The belligerence had all but left him, and as Red and Raithe came down the stairs on Devlin’s heels, he went limp.

“Red, if you would, please take Autumn out of here,” Devlin instructed calmly. “I don’t think the damage he inflicted is too severe, though she’s likely to have some bad bruising along with some cuts and such. Please be sure to let me know at once if my assessment of her injuries is incorrect.” He flashed a chilling smile at Dmitry. “I would hate to think we were too easy on this asshole she somehow got involved with.”

Red scooped me up off the floor gingerly, heading back up the stairs with me to take me to my room so she could run a bath and see about cleaning me up. She wanted to see what was going to happen to Dmitry, but I came first, and she figured Raithe would fill her in.

“Why do you care what happens to her?” Dmitry asked.

“You’ve either got some serious balls to ask us that, or you’re just that fucking stupid,” Belial retorted, studying him with his arms folded and his head tilted to one side. “I’m inclined to think it’s the latter though.”

“And although you certainly don’t deserve a response, I’ll give you one anyhow,” Lilith expressed. “She belongs to us – not you, and certainly not Lucifer.”

“I don’t think so,” Dmitry spat. “She belongs to me, and to Lucifer.”

Stolas laughed, shaking his head slowly. “He really isn’t very bright, is he?” he mused. “Poor, simple, Dmitry. Did we take your toy away from you? Are you going to cry and throw a tantrum for us now?” The smile he gave Dmitry was full of malice. “I wish you’d try.”

Belial gazed around the room for a moment, something insidious flickering across his face as he noted the chains that hung from the ceiling and the ring bolts on the floor. “How handy,” he murmured. “Raum. Locate some form of restraints for his wrists and ankles, and let’s make him a bit more comfortable while we wait for Red to examine Autumn.”

Raithe moved to help Raum, and together they got Dmitry locked into place. Dmitry reacted in typical fashion by spitting at Raithe and got punched for his efforts. “Want to try that again?” Raithe asked, glaring at him.

“Good reflexes,” Stolas complimented softly, smirking at the blood that welled and ran from the corner of Dmitry’s mouth.

Dmitry, surprisingly, kept his mouth shut this time.

“So, Raithe,” Devlin began, propping nonchalantly on the padded spanking bench, “just how long was this asshole in her life? What’s the history here?”

“Almost five years,” Raithe answered, not taking his eyes off Dmitry. “We tried to talk her out of seeing him, but … she’s stubborn.” He paused. “Wasn’t so bad at first, really. The last eight or nine months though … things changed. Started seeing her come in with bite marks and stuff. He got a little too jealous of other men, started accusing her of fucking everyone she worked with. I don’t know how she convinced him to leave her house, but as you can see it was short-lived. Of course, we knew this day would come. We just didn’t know when.”

Belial regarded Dmitry intently, his eyes narrowed slightly. “He really doesn’t seem to fit what I would expect her to want in a mate,” he remarked. “What possessed her to accept him?”

“She’d been dating Elves for the last ten years or better, and she was tired of them,” Raithe explained. “She thought she wanted someone different, and so there he was.”

Raithe nodded. “So is Finn, though. He’s probably the only one who isn’t openly distrustful of any attention she gets from other men. Russ and Thann still think they have to protect her, for reasons that are beyond me.” He uttered a dry laugh. “They obviously missed the night she took down that drunk biker by herself. Son of a bitch had at least a hundred and fifty pounds on her and topped her by at least a head. She put him flat on his ass though.”

“For the female of the species is deadlier than the male,” Raum commented, smirking.

Devlin’s phone rang then, and without taking his eyes off Dmitry he answered it. In the matter of a few seconds, the temperature in the room dropped a good twenty degrees. Clearly, it wasn’t good news from Red.

Stolas began to laugh very softly, regarding the secured human with sadistic glee. “It’s going to suck to be you very shortly, Dmitry,” he expressed.

Putting his phone away, Devlin straightened and walked over to Belial, quickly relaying what Red had told him. Belial’s eyes ignited, and tendrils of his hair began turning to red serpents that snapped and hissed.

“Go to her, Devlin,” Belial murmured. “I will see to this shitbag.” He then stalked over to Dmitry, leaning down into his face with an expression full of malice. “Hear me, and understand that I keep my word,” he murmured, eyes locked on the pale blue of Dmitry’s. “Your life will not end until she has healed the hurts you dealt her, and neither shall your torments. Until she is well, you are going to endure everything you put her through this night … and then some.” Backing away, he glanced to Raum. “You and those you command? He is all yours, for however long it takes Autumn to heal. With what Devlin just told me, that’s going to be some time to come.” Those amber eyes narrowed. “Spare nothing, and I mean nothing.”

“Has Devlin called for a medic?” Raithe asked, unsure.

“I will see to it,” Belial replied, moving away from Dmitry. “Lilith, I’d like for you and Stolas to strengthen the wards. I want to make sure no one comes in without an express invitation from me. Raithe, please be so kind as to tell the Elves to fuck off now. I can feel them hovering just outside the door, and it’s grating on my last fucking nerve.” That said, he headed up the stairs after Devlin.

“He is absolutely pissed,” Stolas remarked, shivering.

“Do you blame him?” Raithe asked, regarding the daemon. “Knowing Dmitry’s mind, the bastard probably beat the hell out of her and more than likely pinned her down and raped her. If I found out someone who was under my care had been abused and raped, I think I’d be pissed too.”

Lilith looked to Raum. “Make it hurt,” she growled and spat in Dmitry’s face. Regarding Stolas, she flared her nostrils. “Come on. Let’s make sure the house is secured.”

Raithe headed up the stairs on their heels, sure that he didn’t want to see what Raum did to Dmitry. He’d been tempted up until Lilith had told them to make it hurt – no. He didn’t need to witness that sort of brutality. Besides, he needed to get Russ and Eamon the fuck out of there before Belial took matters into his own hands. Not that he really would have blamed him …

Red hadn’t been prepared for just how bad Dmitry had hurt me. The bruises were bad enough, as were the ragged gashes down my back from his nails but combined with the deep puncture wounds from his teeth that literally covered my shoulders, chest, and inner thighs, and the rape … she lost it. She managed to get me cleaned up, dried off, and then set about putting salve on my injuries through a red haze of rage, muttering curses that should have stripped the paint off the walls. Hell, she was barely cognizant of making the call to Devlin to let him know what the bastard had done.

After putting me to bed and covering me up with a blanket, she pulled a chair over beside the bed and promptly stationed herself there. “Motherfucking son of a bitch,” she muttered, jaw clenching. “I’d like to get my hands on him one good time … cock-sucking piece of shit.”

“He is being dealt with,” Devlin expressed, approaching her silently with Belial on his heels.

Though their sudden appearance startled her, she didn’t let it show. “Good,” she said.

He gingerly settled on the side of the bed with Belial looking over his shoulder, sure that he probably didn’t want to see the damage but needing to look anyhow. Bracing himself, he tugged the blanket down slowly, not wanting to disturb me and possibly trigger an episode. At first, he didn’t understand what he was looking at, but after a few seconds …

Red felt her hair stand on end and her spine crawl at the wave of wrath that swept through the room. She’d been around plenty of pissed off people in her life, but all of them combined didn’t hold a candle to the daemon currently muttering darkly in a language she didn’t recognize. This was rage she didn’t want to know anything about, and if she could have gotten up and fled the room without attracting his attention she’d have been gone

Within seconds, another daemon moved into the room, regarding Belial quizzically. “You called for me?” he murmured softly.

Belial growled from low in his throat, those molten amber eyes awash in a sea of flames. “Please see to her,” he instructed. “Her … injuries … are far worse than we expected.” He then turned to Red. “Go home, Ambrose. We will handle the matter.”

Red didn’t have to be told twice, scooting out of my bedroom quickly with Belial following her. She all but ran down the stairs, the rage that he radiated galvanizing her. Dmitry was in deep shit, but he deserved every bit of whatever they did to him.

Belial stalked back down into the dungeon, paying no attention to Raum and those he had called. “Unchain him and leave us,” he expressed tightly, his eyes locked on Dmitry’s.

They got the man loose in a matter of seconds, moving away silently as Belial moved closer to Dmitry.

Dmitry stretched some, feeling the sting of what they’d done to him already and not happy about being in this situation. Stretching, he snarled at Belial. “I’ll kill you,” he threatened. “I’ll kill you, and your friends won’t be able to do one fucking thing about it.”

Belial just laughed, waving the others away. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?” he murmured. “Well. Let me show you, then.”

Raithe was still arguing with Russ and Fin when Red all but ran out the door, looking like the hounds of Hell were on her heels. “Red?” he called, concerned.

She shook her head. “We’re all leaving and now,” she stated, heading straight for her vehicle. A split second later the whole house exploded in vivid green, the light pulsing thickly around the whole perimeter in warning.

Eamon stared in utter shock. “Who the hell is in there with them?” he asked softly.

“Oh, fuck this,” Russ muttered, and at once stalked to the front door. The moment his foot contacted the first step, he was literally thrown backward onto his ass. For a second all he could do was stare in utter surprise, but then the anger came back. “God damn it! Who the fuck are you? What right do you have keeping me out? That’s my goddamned ex, you motherfucker! I have the right to see to her!”

Lilith suddenly appeared at the door, black eyes regarding the pissed-off Elf in slight humor. “Oh, did you not get an invitation then?” she baited. “How dreadfully impolite. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait then. I would suggest going to your home, however. Waiting outside the door could prove … dangerous.”

Although Russ had no idea who the gorgeous, red-haired female with the odd eyes was, he didn’t argue with her. Something about her tone and stance told the Elf this was one woman he didn’t want to fuck with – ever. Getting to his feet carefully, the redhead turned on his heel and nodded to Eamon. “We’ll go home,” he murmured.

Raithe sighed and waved to Lilith, getting into his vehicle also. He figured in a day or two he’d hear something regarding my status.

Kano eyed Red as she climbed into the Hummer, concerned with how she looked. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly, his hand going to her leg in reassurance.

“I don’t ever want that man mad at me,” Red expressed, shivering. “Fucking hell, Magpie. I think we’ll be picking tiny pieces of Dmitry out of her dungeon for the next three years.”

“Who … was that at the door?” he inquired, watching as said woman closed the door again.

Red sighed, shaking her head as she put the vehicle in reverse to get turned around. “I don’t know, Magpie. I really don’t know.”

Though he really wanted to question her further, Kano knew better. Red didn’t spook easily, and this had clearly shaken her to her core. “Alright, babe,” he murmured. “I guess Devlin will let us know something?”

She nodded, heading down the drive – and feeling her unease fall away the further away from my house she got. “Probably later tonight, or tomorrow at the latest,” she replied. “I’m going to kill your father, by the way. He just had to talk that fucking asshole up …”

“How bad did he hurt her?”

Red growled, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Motherfucker clawed up her back, bit the absolute fuck out of her shoulders, breasts, and the insides of her thighs, and he fucking raped her on top of all that,” she told him.

Kano narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be more than happy to help clean bits of him out of her dungeon,” he expressed. “And I’ll even help you kick my father’s ass. Should we stop back by Ian’s?”

“That’s a damned good idea,” she agreed.

Meanwhile, inside my house, the others had gathered in the kitchen to wait for Belial to emerge from the dungeon – once he’d exhausted the mindless rage, that is.

“She appears to mean more to Devlin than he’s letting on,” Raum commented, thinking. “I wonder if he will admit it to himself though.”

“I’d say we could intervene, but I think that would only do harm,” Stolas added. “But do we know how she feels about him?”

Lilith smiled some. “I find it highly unlikely that she would have experienced three full-blown orgasms from him touching her leg if she were not interested in him,” she said bluntly.

“Yes and no,” Lilith murmured. “Devlin is incredibly stubborn and proud – we all know this. I have the feeling the relationship will be extremely volatile until he yields. He’s got some things he still hasn’t come to terms with from his past, and let’s add to that what he said to all of us before he even showed up here.”

“Oh, you mean the whole ‘I’m only going to look after her for a little while, just long enough to take care of a potential problem and then I’m out of there’ speech he gave?” Raum quizzed. “That’s horse shit and we all know that. He wouldn’t feel this protective if he didn’t care on a level that was more than he’s admitting.” He sighed. “He’s so dense sometimes it’s almost shameful.”

The others chuckled at that, nodding in agreement.

“Something funny?” Belial asked, appearing in the doorway.

Stolas and Raum could only gape at the sight of him – he was covered in blood, and they were both near certain none of it was his. The sight was … chilling, in a word.

“Ah, it was nothing,” Stolas answered, unable to quit staring at him.

Raum shifted his stance, trying to find his voice. “Did you leave us anything to play with?” he finally asked.

“He still draws breath, if that’s what you’re asking,” Belial replied. “I’m going to check on her, and then I’m leaving. Get that fucking piece of shit out of her house and clean up the dungeon.” That said, he spun on his heel and headed for the stairs.

“Well,” Lilith murmured, neatly folding her arms across her chest with a raised eyebrow. “This is going to be interesting.”

More consent violation and rape (yes, I'm classifying what happened to Devlin as rape).

I almost called out the first night back, but I didn’t have a good reason not to be there. Besides, just because my guys had behaved for this long didn’t mean I could trust them on their own. Getting dressed, I grabbed my keys and opened the door – to discover it was pouring rain. “Fucking wonderful,” I muttered, making the mad dash to the garage. “Won’t be taking the Diablo tonight, even though I’m tempted.” Sighing heavily, I got into the Outback and headed for the jail.

It must have been raining all day because the creeks were overflowing and there were a couple of spots where water was over the road on the way in. It certainly didn’t make for a good night. “Leviathan hold us safe,” I murmured, pulling into the lot and parking near the doors. If I’d been more observant, I would have seen the additional Outback sitting there, but the rain had me distracted. Swearing under my breath, I opened the door to run to the doors – and the bottom really fell out. “God fucking damn it to Hell!” I yelled, racing through the doors. “Who the fuck ordered this shit? I’m kicking your ass for it!”

Booking was dead quiet.

I stopped trying to shake water off me and looked up, wondering what the fuck I’d just walked into.

“Lieutenant,” Devlin greeted neutrally, not meeting my eyes.

A thousand responses came to mind as I stood staring at him, and most of them were decidedly not nice. Taking a deep breath to clear my mind of those ugly thoughts, I folded my arms over my chest. “The next time you need some time off, I would suggest you clear it with the sheriff instead of just up and disappearing on us,” I made myself say. “In the meantime, be glad he was kind enough to keep your position for you.”

“Understood,” he murmured. “I apologized to him earlier. I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I had some things to tend to – it was all a bit sudden, you might say. It won’t happen again.”

I nodded, heading on to my office to finish trying to dry off and collect my thoughts.

Red, Finn, Russ, and Trist all walked in the doors then, stopping dead at the sight of Devlin standing there in uniform. “Well hell, we thought you’d left,” Red expressed, smirking. “You picked one hell of a night to come back to us, Devlin.”

Devlin smiled despite himself, shrugging. “I had some business to sort out,” he said. “Didn’t mean to just bail on you. What are you doing here anyhow? Isn’t this your night off?”

Russ nodded. “It is our night off, but since half the county is already underwater, we thought we’d lend you guys a hand tonight,” he explained. “Outbacks are great under normal circumstances, but what we drive has your patrol vehicles beat. Trust me, you’ll be glad of our help by the end of the shift.”

I came back out upon hearing more voices, shaking my head at the sight of the four of them. “I thought I recognized that voice,” I said. “I won’t say I’m not glad to see you four though. The truth of the matter would be I’m ecstatic. I hate rain.”

“No, lovely, you hate floods,” Finn corrected, oblivious to the look Devlin shot him. “So, we all rode to the rescue.”

“Good,” I replied, hugging the Elf.

Red saw Devlin’s jaw clench and his eyes narrow faintly and debated over telling Finn to get the hell off me. Nope, not getting involved, she decided. Hell in a handbasket, what a night this is going to be.

Still leaning on Finn, I turned to regard the rest of my shift. “Okay guys, listen up,” I said clearly. “Red, Russ, Trist, and Finn are here as back-up since our night is so fucking lovely already. They’ll be running patrol right along with us. I don’t think I need to tell anyone this, but I’m going to anyhow: do not try to cross floodwaters. I don’t care if you know the roads, and I don’t care if you can see the fucking highway divider. It only takes an inch of swift-moving water to take you off the road car and all, and I would really prefer to keep you guys in one piece and safe, thanks. Got it? Good. Move out.”

Red put her arm around me, shaking her head as the rest of the guys filed out the door to hit the roads. “Gonna be one hell of a rough night,” she remarked. “You alright?”

I nodded. “Didn’t expect to see him back, but yeah, I’m okay,” I answered softly, my eyes going to my sergeant as he got into his vehicle.

“Be careful, Autumn,” she told me. “I think that one plays for keeps.”

Shrugging, I headed for my own vehicle. “He’s got his work cut out for him then, if he wants to keep me,” I murmured, backing out of my spot and heading for the north end of the county.

By midnight it became apparent that the rain wasn’t going to stop, and I made a decision. “Guys – everyone head back to the jail,” I called over the radio. “This shit is ridiculous. There’s no point in all of us out on the road when nothing’s going on.”

“Thank you,” Eamon called back, sounding genuinely grateful.

“Lieutenant, we’ve got a problem,” Aerik called, sounding worried. “Oh, shit – is the son of a bitch crazy?”

“What?” I called. “Damn it, Aerik – what the hell is going on over there? Where are you?”

“I’m on the east side of Route Eight,” he called back. “Got some asshole in an orange Challenger that thinks tonight’s great for racing. I can’t keep up.”

“Oh, fuck this,” I muttered. “Aerik, try to keep him in your sight. I’ll be en-route in about … eh, five minutes.” Neatly I executed a U-turn and headed for the house. Clearly, I’d been right in wanting to take the Diablo out despite the weather.

“Autumn, don’t do it,” Finn called. “I’m telling you – this is not the night.”

It took longer to get to the house than it did to switch cars and hit the road again, but by the time I hit Shadow Wood, the Challenger had turned to head south on Route Seven. “I’ll catch him on Twelve then,” I called, making sure I’d turned on all the necessary extras I needed to run him down. I didn’t have the lights on yet, not seeing the point in giving any warning.

“Autumn, where the hell are you?” Russ called, not realizing it was me about to run up his ass.

“Check your eyes, sweetheart,” I called back, zipping past him.

“Son of a bitch – Autumn, I’m with Finn. This is a really fucking bad idea,” he expressed. “Please. Just go on to the jail, let’s all meet up there. Let that damned fool meet a bad end on his own, for the love of the gods.”

“Not alone you won’t,” Devlin called firmly. “I’m at the corner of Seven and Twelve – you will stop long enough to get me.”

“Pushy fucking asshole,” I retorted. “Fine, but you’d best be quick to get in or I’ll leave your ass.” I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard a collective sigh of relief over the radio. It would have been funny had the situation not been so serious.

Not even a minute later saw me skidding to a halt at the corner of Seven and Twelve long enough to let Devlin scramble into the passenger seat and buckle in. “You handle the traffic,” I told him, putting it back in gear and taking off again.

“Motherfucking hell!” Aerik yelled, clearly pissed off. “Autumn, the son of a bitch just whipped it around on me – he’s headed north again on Seven!”

I chuckled, glancing over at Devlin. “Hope you’re on good terms with whomever you believe in. You know … just in case something goes wrong.”

He just laughed, not seeing the point in replying to that. “Oh, look. Is that our asshole of the night?” he asked, studying an orange vehicle just up ahead of us.

“I think we have a winner,” I muttered, down-shifting briefly to close the gap and hitting the lights. As expected, the second the driver saw the lights come on he – or she – tried to run. “Oh, goodie. I get to play with you.”

“Sergeant, have you located the speeder yet?” Nara asked, sounding flustered.

“Affirmative,” Devlin answered. “Though it appears he’s not interested in stopping to chat with us. My feelings are hurt, I think.”

“You are such a smart ass,” I murmured, smirking despite myself. Watching the car in front of us, I narrowed my eyes and flipped open a panel in the dash near me. “Come on, asshole … give me a reason,” I muttered, fingers hovering over two buttons. “Hold on tight, Sergeant, this is about to get a little rough.”

A split second after my warning, Devlin saw the driver start to take the turn onto Grey Cliff. He heard two faint clicks, and green light exploded around us. No sooner had the light settled into place than I whipped in parallel to the Challenger and began forcing them off the road.

I didn’t let up until I was sure the car was completely off the pavement, going so far as to follow them half-way. However, unlike them, I had the bonus of all-wheel drive. Neatly, I reversed back up onto the pavement, sighing and shaking my head as I pulled on the parking brake and flipped off the extras.

The second the green aura had faded enough, Devlin got out of the car to regard the Challenger half-buried in the muck, clearly amused. “Now that we have your attention, how about getting the fuck out of the car before I just start shooting?” he called, arms neatly folded across his chest.

I moved up beside him, not thinking twice about leaning against him. “You’ve got to the count of three, jack ass,” I called. “You don’t want me coming over there to haul you out of the car, believe me.”

Lights fell over us, and Devlin glanced over to see Red pulling to a halt behind us. As she hopped down out of her vehicle, he sighed and was about to make a comment when I suddenly growled and headed straight for the car. “Hell,” he muttered, heading after me.

I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I stalked over to the car, slinging my baton open to take out the driver’s side window in one solid blow. “I said get out of the fucking car, you dickhead!” I yelled, reaching through the broken window to grab a handful of shirt and yank …

“Oh, are you fucking kidding me?” Red exclaimed, seeing who was driving. “I thought we got rid of you! What the fucking hell are you doing back?”

“Fuck you,” Gyle spat, and then tried to spit at me.

I just punched him, not seeing the point in saying anything else to him. He was drunk, he was belligerent … yeah, fuck it. Grabbing my radio, I sighed. “Hey Hiren, your stalker’s back sweetheart,” I called.

“I’ll give you a dollar if you just shoot him and leave him to rot,” Hiren replied.

“Idiot,” Devlin muttered, helping him out none too gently and walking him up to the road.

Gyle looked up at Devlin, blinking. “Where in hell did they find you?” he expressed, letting his eyes fall over him – well, as best he could anyhow. “The hell with Hiren – think I’d rather have you.”

“Yeah, and I think you’re drunk and better not even try …” Devlin trailed off, stopping dead in his tracks as a hand suddenly appeared on his crotch.

A shot rang through the relative silence, dropping Gyle to his knees with a startled cry. “Thought I told you to keep your fucking hands off my property, bitch?” I growled. “Now. Try it again, if you’ve got the balls.”

The blond stared up at me in utter shock. “You shot me,” he said dumbly.

“And?” I countered, not holstering my gun. “You keep running that cock-sucker at me and I’ll do worse.”

I caught him under the chin with the toe of my boot as hard as I could kick him, effectively shutting him up. As he went over on his back, I moved to stand over him, my right foot on his throat and the gun trained between his eyes. “Too good for you, yeah, I don’t want what the fuck you’ve got,” I told him. “Last chance, Gyle. Behave or I’ll blow your fucking brains all over this marsh and leave you here to rot.”

The cavalry finally showed up then, and I moved back to watch as Eamon and Russ hauled the Elf to his feet and shoved him in the back of Eamon’s patrol car. No one said a word to me about the gunshot wound or the blood all over Gyle’s face, knowing better. The bastard deserved it anyhow.

Red studied me for a moment before turning her attention to Devlin. “Sergeant. Take her home, will you? We can handle the rest of the night,” she said. “If she argues, do what you have to do. If you need help, call me. I’ll come sit on her for you.”

He nodded, watching as she got into her vehicle and pulled off, leaving him alone with me.

“You drive,” I murmured, getting in on the passenger side quietly.

“Oh yeah, Sergeant? We’ll have your patrol vehicle taken back to the jail for you,” Red called over the radio. “So, don’t worry about retrieving it.”

“Appreciate it,” he called, getting in on the driver’s side and buckling up. Sighing to himself, he put it in gear and headed for my house with me.

It wasn’t until he had parked the Diablo in the garage that he tried to talk to me. “Nice driving tonight,” he complimented. “The others don’t seem to know you that well, though.”

“Everyone thinks they have to protect me,” I said, unbuckling my seat harness. “Why did you leave?”

I nodded, getting out of the car to take him into the house. We headed for the kitchen, where he automatically started making coffee for us both. I couldn’t help the faint smile as I watched him. “I wasn’t joking about needing a houseboy,” I teased lightly, remembering the sight of him nude.

I leaned against the table, studying him. “Why? What’s so hard about explaining why you just disappeared on us, Devlin?”

“Belial told me everyone saw through that bullshit story I fed you all,” he said, getting the mugs out of the microwave to set them on the table along with the tin of coffee. “I’m his priest, Autumn. He came to me after I left, told me to get my shit together and get back here before … someone else came along and snatched you up.” Taking a deep breath, he turned to face me. “The last time anyone touched me there, it wasn’t with my permission. I’ve got some … trauma, you might say.”

“You triggered that evening,” I murmured, it all making sense to me now. When he nodded, I sighed. “Why didn’t you just tell me, though? Why did you insist on being such an asshole, and pissing me off?”

“I didn’t know what you had planned for me until you had me nude,” he replied. “And then I didn’t believe you’d really push the issue with me like that. I’m sorry, Autumn. Really, I am.”

I just couldn’t help myself. Setting my mug down, I moved to embrace him, resting my cheek on his chest. “I’m sorry too,” I murmured. “I assumed you were fighting it because you were like most men and wanted that to stay exit only. You were so sick, though … that’s why I pushed you. Not because I wanted to humiliate you. It was all I could do to stop the vomiting.”

Sighing, he embraced me back and nuzzled into my hair for a moment. “When I was a teenager, I got drunk with the wrong crowd,” he began, holding me just a bit tighter. “There were two older girls there – college age, I’d say. They had a sadistic streak in them, and I wound up being their toy for the night. I was just too drunk to fight them, Autumn. They tied me up and entertained themselves by seeing what all they could stick up my ass.”

“Oh, god, Devlin,” I murmured, horrified.

He made a non-committal noise and sighed again, this time more heavily. “The last thing they did was to see which one of their fists would fit. Neither one did, but … they forced them in anyhow. The pain made me vomit, but they didn’t care.” He paused. “I’m just thankful that was back before cell phones with cameras. At least they didn’t take pictures, or film it.”

I pulled back from him to meet his eyes. “If they ever end up here, I’ll have them both in my dungeon as guests for a week before I kill them,” I stated.

“Why would you do that for someone like me?” he asked.

“I seem to have grown a bit attached to you,” I admitted. “I don’t know what my feelings are yet, but there’s no denying the attraction.” I lowered my gaze to the floor then, brow furrowed. “Maybe I’m not your type, though.”

He brought my face back up to his. “Now, see, that’s where you’d be wrong, sweetheart,” he murmured, and leaned down to kiss me. The way I melted into him, along with how I fought him for control of the kiss, was telling. Backing out of it, he met my eyes. “What do you say to dinner, a hot shower, and then spending the rest of the night with me in bed?”

I kept my pregnancy hidden from Conn for as long as I could. I made a concoction for the nausea I felt with the morning sickness and did my best to manage the fatigue I had also felt with my first pregnancy. I tracked when my periods should have been and used it as an excuse not to have to lie with Conn. With any luck, by the time I was really showing I would be long gone.

When Conn hit our son and then raped me in front of him, it was a brutal wake up call. Oisin, my beautiful, energetic, rambunctious boy, had not spoken since. He was listless, withdrawn, and terrified of his father. He clung to my skirts as I worked around the house, and refused to fall asleep without me by his side. Thankfully, Conn spent more and more time at the pub. Oisin was calmer when he wasn’t around, and it made it easier to slip over to our elderly neighbor, Aine, during the day.

“Gods, girl, what has he done to you now?” she murmured softly to me one day late that spring, passing over a mug of tea. I was sporting a new bruise on the side of my cheek that had turned a violent shade of purple since it had been inflicted a day ago. One of Conn’s freshly laundered shirts had not dried fast enough by the fire, and he had decided that it was my fault. Aine took my trembling hands in her wrinkled, soft ones as I told her so.

“Sorcha...you know it isn’t your fault. I’ll be happier when I know you’re far away from him, and your sweet boy too. If you don’t leave for yourself, leave for them.” She brushed a hand across my cheek, gently checking for damage to the bone. I winced at her touch, and Oisin’s hands tightened around my neck as she got close to us. Aine pulled back with a sigh.

“And the babe?” she asked gently.

Aine was the one person I had confided my pregnancy in. I’d passed out carrying water back from the creek one day as I passed her house earlier that year just after I became aware of my pregnancy, and Oisin’s cries had alerted her that something was wrong. I was just coming to when she rushed outside, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer as she forced me into her bed to rest. Aine’s husband had passed away some years before, and her grown children stopped by infrequently to check on her, so there was no risk of anyone finding me there and raising questions. When she found the lump at the back of my head from where Conn had cracked it against the hearth, she pressed me for answers.

Aine had seen too many beaten women in her day to know that I had not just “fallen”. She had an aura about her of gentleness and compassion that I had not felt since my grandmother. I knew from the way her mouth involuntarily twisted into a disgusted sneer whenever I said my husband’s name that she could be trusted, so I told her everything. I poured my heart out to her in that little cottage, with Oisin clinging to my breast. She stayed silent as I recounted the years of abuse, and my breaking point when he had laid a hand on our son. She took my hand when the tears spilled over as I grieved for the second child I would be bringing into a life of pain. She took on all the weight of my sorrows - and then she swore that my little girl would be born into a house where she could be a child, not a house where she grew up walking on eggshells for fear of pain.

That afternoon, Aine took me home and hauled my water from the creek. She did all the cooking and cleaning and bade me rest and heal while we talked, carefully keeping an eye out for Conn the whole time. We came up with a plan - I’d make poultices and concoctions when I was able, and she’d sell them to the fine women in town. I taught her how to make some of the easier poultices so that when I was indisposed, she’d be able to continue running our little business venture. The money we made would go towards a new life for me and my children, somewhere Conn would never find us. When Conn came stumbling drunkenly up the path that evening, she slipped out the back door, leaving nothing but the promise of a whispered future in her wake.

I was sure Aine had been sent from the Gods in my hour of need. She didn’t have much to do in the way of housework, seeing as she lived alone, so she would come over most mornings after Conn left for work and help me with Oisin, the housework, and the poultices. When I needed to get out of the house, her home was always a safe haven for me. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, and soon pouches and jars of our concoctions and poultices filled her shelves. Most importantly for me, a pouch hidden under a flagstone near her hearth held the fruits of our labors - my chance at freedom.

That spring afternoon after Conn had backhanded me for his shirt not drying fast enough, I had slipped over with Oisin so we could confirm we’d saved up enough coin. It was just as well, since I was nearing my fifth month of pregnancy, and starting to show. For the most part, Conn was too blind drunk to notice anything different when he stumbled home from the pub at night and mounted me in the dark, reeking of sweat and stale beer. During the day, I used cleverly draped shawls and wraps to conceal the new life inside me so no one would suspect. Aine was the only one I ever let near my growing belly, as the little girl inside me seemed to glow at her touch. She hadn’t started kicking yet, but I could feel her energy inside me the same as any other.

I felt her now, singing out in joy when Aine and I counted the sum we had accumulated for the second time, certain that it was enough to get us safe passage far away from here. My mind took the chance of freedom and ran with it like a doe through a field. I’d always loved the water, and I’d never seen the sea - maybe Oisin, the babe, and I would settle somewhere on the coast! For a heartbeat, the possibilities were endless! Even Oisin picked up on my joy and gave me a small, uncertain smile. He still hadn’t spoken since the day he’d watch his father force himself on me on the kitchen floor, but I still prayed that one day I’d have my energetic, rambunctious chatterbox of a son back. Now, I knew that was a real possibility!

I hugged Aine tightly, feeling the babe in my belly hum in contentment as I did.

“I’ll pack tonight while Conn is asleep and come back for the money first thing after he’s gone in the morning,” I breathed into her ear. “We’ll be gone by the time he gets home from work!”

“And you and Oisin will be better for it, dear,” Aine replied, a grin stretching across her weathered face. “I’m proud of you, girl. I know you’ll do well for yourself.”

I kissed her cheek, swept up Oisin in my arms, and, trying desperately not to let my ecstasy shine out into the world, made my way back to our home. I rushed through my chores the rest of the afternoon, nearly burning the evening meal in my haste. When Conn stumbled in that evening, reeking as usual of sweat and ale and looking for a fight, I did everything I could not to aggravate him. I kept my eyes down, my answers minimal, and Oisin out of the way.

Until my little girl kicked for the first time.

I couldn’t stop my hand flying to my belly and a gasp from slipping out. I tried to stop the smile breaking across my face, but I was too slow - Conn’s head had whipped around at the motion he’d seen out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s with you, woman? On the rag, is it?” he asked gruffly.

“Y-yes. It was just a cramp, Conn - nothing to worry about,” I answered, desperately hoping he wouldn’t push the issue. He turned to me suddenly, his eyes keenly boring into my belly. Suddenly I could feel every heartbeat of mine and my babe’s, both pulsing fear through my whole being with every beat. Conn shot to his feet suddenly, and my hands flew to my belly to protect the little life inside me on an instinct I had no more control over than the urge to breathe. My husband stalked towards me, noting the fear in my face and posture no matter how hard I tried to conceal it.

“Sorcha, you’d best not be lying to me. You know what happens when you lie...and that’s not what a wife does to her husband, is it?” Conn’s voice had taken on a deadly quiet tone, and I knew what was coming. Gods no, please don’t let him find out-

“Conn, it’s nothing, I promise-” I made a last, desperate plea before his huge hand shot out and gripped my hair. He wrenched my head back to look up at him with one hand and tore my shawl off with the other. My tell-tale bump jutted out, and he let me go suddenly, stepping back and staring at it with an unreadable expression on his face. My hands wrapped protectively around my belly. I felt a brief flicker of hope - maybe he was happy? Maybe this time would be different, now that it was a girl, and he’d be proud of me. Maybe if I had another child, he’d stop drinking so much, and stop taking it out on me and -

“You lied, woman.” Conn was still standing as still as a stone, staring at my belly, but the words had come from him. His expression was still unreadable, his tone flat and quiet. I stayed silent and lowered my eyes, praying that he wouldn’t take it out on our daughter.

“You know the consequences of lying.” His voice was still flat, factual, as if he were reporting the weather. No, no no no please no -

Before I could breathe, he lunged towards me.

“Conn, no, PLEASE, it’s a girl, please don’t hurt her-” My pleas fell on deaf ears. Conn forced me backward, the rage now evident in his expression. The wind was knocked from my lungs as I hit the floor, trying desperately to curl into a ball around my belly so he couldn’t hurt my daughter as Conn went for the fire poker a few feet away. The vision of my husband standing over me, holding a fire poker in one hand and balling his fist in the other, was the last thing I saw before a vicious blow to the head sent me spiraling into darkness.

I woke to a darkened room. The fire had died down sometime in the night, and the embers provided just enough light for me to see the silhouette of my husband in a chair staring straight into the hearth, perfectly still, the poker laid flat across his lap. I dared not to move a muscle, straining desperately to find Oisin before I recognized his warm, soft head resting on my chest, and his hands fisted tightly in my hair. Trying to remain perfectly still, I evaluated my own injuries - a brutal gash tore across my head, with one eye swollen shut. At least one tooth was missing, maybe more. My nose was clogged with blood - possibly broken. When I tried to breathe deeply, my throat felt as if it were on fire - I realized Conn had likely tried to choke me. My collarbones ached deeply, and my torso - oh, Gods.

My belly was a mess of bruises, pain, and blood. No, please, no… Trying desperately not to wake Oisin or alert Conn to my state of consciousness, I sent a pulse of energy through my womb.

I felt nothing more than the pain of a contraction tear through my womb.

No, no, no GODS NO -

My daughter was already gone.

I bit back a sob, unwilling to wake Conn and risk losing two children in one night. Oisin’s hands tightened in my hair as he felt my chest jerk with the effort of holding back the flood of rage and sorrow, and I silently raised one of my hands to cover his own. I squeezed it gently, reassuring him I was still alive.

A sudden movement from Conn’s chair sent my heart racing like a rabbit, and a sound halfway between a yelp and a moan left my lips. The relief I felt when I heard the snore erupt from Conn’s still body washed over me, and I quietly began to struggle to my feet, new pain and blood blossoming from my body with every motion. Oisin stood with me, silently raising his hands, wanting to be lifted up, not understanding what had just happened to me. I lifted a finger to my lips, took his hand, and crept out of the cottage with my living child in tow. I thought about going to Aine’s, but that would be the first place he’d look when he woke, and I could not justify the blood of two innocents on my hands.

We fled straight into the woods, the blood of my loss marking a trail behind us. Contractions continued to tear through me as we moved as fast as I could, coming closer and closer together, until finally, I was unable to stand any more - I collapsed onto the ground at the base of a large oak, pulling Oisin down with me. My fingers clawed at the ground, and I grunted and choked out screams as my daughter’s lifeblood poured from me. When I felt her slip out of me, I caught her tiny, still body gently, and cradled her, even as I knew she was gone.

“Aislinn...sweet girl…” I whispered, softly, choking on the tears spilling down my face. Oisin reached out a tentative hand, touching his sister’s forehead gently, before taking one of her tiny, perfect hands on the tip of a finger. I gathered them both into my lap, and for what felt like hours, we sat in numb silence.

“Sorcha…” The sigh of my name floated in on a breeze of cedar smoke and freshly turned earth, tangled up with something sweeter and wilder, like wildflowers and honey, all blending with the coppery tang of my blood. I cradled my children closer to me as I looked up to meet the eyes of the God I now associated with the death of my loved ones. First my mother, and now my own little one. Dagda was staring at my still, tiny daughter in my arms, sorrow deeply etched into his time-weathered face.

“You were never meant to bear such pain, child.” The woman’s voice sounded like a breeze through a meadow of wildflowers up in the mountains. Dressed in a deep green gown, Danu stood next to her husband. Tenderly, she reached forward and rested a hand on my shoulder. I watched her dully, unable to react to anything. Oisin looked up at her with wide eyes, and as Danu met his gaze, a sense of peace like I’d never known flowed through the both of us.

“We will care for you, and your children. All of your children. Do you remember the promise I made you the last time we met, Sorcha? It will never be forgotten,” Dagda said, rising to his feet. He turned his face to the sky, closing his eyes. I felt the push of his energy as he called someone - or something to us.

A new scent joined the now-mingled odors of cedar smoke and wildflowers - something foul, and untamed. Rot, death, and decay. I heard the unmistakable clop of a horse moving through the trees, snapping branches like bones and crunching pebbles like teeth under its hooves. Moving into the moonlight, I saw one of the creatures my grandmother had warned me that I’d best hope I never had to see - the Dullahan.

I wasn’t even sure the beast that walked into the clearing could be called a horse. Despite the sounds I had heard earlier, only the rear legs of the creature ended in hooves - the heavily muscled front legs ended in gnarled, clawed hands, tipped with wicked-looking talons. Its pelt was slick and black, moving and shifting like tar or oil, glinting unnervingly in the moonlight. Its head was bigger, blockier than any horse I’d ever seen, and when it opened its mouth, a thick, mottled grey, forked tongue lolled out, dripping green saliva that steamed when it hit the ground. Its empty eye sockets oozed a viscous black liquid, and its jagged teeth had bits of meat caught in it that I shuddered to think about.

The rider astride it was headless, wearing rotted riding leathers. I noticed that the rider needed no saddle or bridle - its legs were fused into the torso of the beast it rode, the riding leathers seamlessly rippling into the black, viscous skin of its mount. In one hand, the rider held a torch with what appeared to be a black flame, and in the other, it held a vicious-looking whip. When the rider gave it an experimental crack, I realized that the stark white segments of the whip were the vertebrae of a human spine. As it turned to face Dagda, I realized that its head was fastened by the hair around its belt - a rotting, unrecognizable mass of flesh and protruding bone swinging freely at the rider’s hip.

“Conn MacDonagh.”

The voice that carried my husband’s death sentence was not Dagda’s or Danu’s, but mine. The Dullahan turned towards me, and the mount paced towards me purposefully. It brought its face down to mine. I stared it down, unblinking. The Dullahan’s mount dropped its jaw open and ran that thick, forked tongue across my face. I shuddered but remained steadfast. It did the same to Oisin, who shied away from it, before turning its attention to my stillborn daughter still in my arms.

The Dullahan stared at little Aislinn for a long moment, before straightening, and lunging forward into the trees, sending out an unearthly shriek as it went. I watched it go, unmoving, before the Dagda and Danu both came and kneeled before me. Dagda gently took Oisin in his heavily muscled arms, looking for all the world like the grandfather Oisin had never known. For his part, Oisin, my painfully shy and anxious son, leaned his head onto the God’s shoulder and popped his thumb securely in his mouth, drifting off to sleep as Danu helped me to stand.

Despite all the tears I had cried and the numbness I now felt, I found that there were still more tears to give for my daughter as I gently placed her in Danu’s arms. I felt them slide down my face as Danu kissed Aislinn’s forehead gently, and knelt on the ground with her. She placed my baby among the roots of the oak tree, stood, and held out her hand over the earth. Her voice as she sang to my daughter, resting peacefully in her grave, was high and pure as a bell.

“Oh hush, my dove, oh hush my sweet love,

Oh hush my darling, my dear little bird...

Oh, fold your wings and seek your nest now,

The berries shine on the old rowan tree,

My little bird is home from the hills and valleys...”

The roots of the oak tree gracefully moved to cradle my daughter, and cover her gently in a casket made of the earth itself. From the casket, a small trickle of water began to flow, and pool on the earth where I had brought her into the world. Wells in the old land were sacred as life itself, and it brought me some peace to know that the Gods had thought my stillborn Aislinn worthy of such an honor.

Danu bent down to the well and filled her cupped hands with sweet spring water. She stood back up, urging me to drink. The water tasted sweet and clear as an untouched mountain spring, and as I felt it touch my lips and mingle with the salt and the blood, I felt my body heal with a warm tingling of energy I recognized intimately.

I had carried that energy below my heart for nearly five months.

When I took Danu’s hands, my bruises were gone and the blood had vanished. My wounds were healed, and even the bleeding from my miscarriage was over. I had no words for my thanks, but Danu didn’t seem to need any. She bent down to lean her forehead against mine, and we stood that way until the Dullahan returned.

I felt the nudge as the huge beast nosed my shoulder. I broke my contact with Danu to turn and face the mount as the rider leaned towards me, beckoning. The rider held out that gruesome whip, black-gloved fingers tapping a new addition, still wet with my husband’s blood. I reached out and touched it gently, closing my eyes as I saw his punishment through the eyes of the rider.

The mount had tracked my husband quickly, following the trail of blood I had left into the forest. I had left the door open in my haste, and it walked straight into the home I had shared with Conn. It stood right in front of him, staring at him as he slept in his chair by the hearth. A drop of that green saliva fell from its mouth as it lolled that mottled grey tongue, searing through his pants and burning into his flesh. Conn jerked awake with a scream, desperately trying to scramble away from the Dullahan. As he met the eyes of the rider, Conn screamed again, but to no use. The poison was taking effect - soon his muscles were all completely lax, and he had no power to move them. I watched, entranced, as the mount began licking up his legs with long strokes of that tongue, the saliva burning its way through the pants on the first stroke, and setting huge, pus-filled boils erupting on his flesh on the second.

Conn tried to scream, but he couldn’t. Soon, the mount got to his manhood - and gripped it gently with those jagged teeth, piercing the flesh but not snapping it off. Not yet. The mount began pulling back, tearing flesh and muscle as it went, until only a flap of skin attached Conn’s manhood to the rest of his body. It was then that the mount took that foul tongue and ran it over the open wound, draining Conn of blood as it went. The poison from its tongue began literally melting Conn’s body from the crotch out, as his manhood dissolved in a pool of pus and blood.

He died terrified, unable to scream, and unable to resist.

I stopped watching when the mount began tearing chunks of flesh off and swallowing them whole. I had seen enough - I was satisfied. I pressed my forehead to the mounts in gratitude.

“Sorcha - it’s time to go. Colm, one of our guides, will take you to a woman who will give you time and space to heal - she is our seeress, our prophet, and one of the strongest warriors I’ve seen outside Tir na nOg. If there is anyone we trust with you and Oisin right now, it is her.” Dagda spoke gently, but firmly. There would be plenty of time to grieve later - for now, I needed to get to safety. I turned back to find the God still cradling my sleeping son, and standing next to a grey-haired man dressed entirely in deerskins. He wore necklaces of beads around his neck, and carried a staff beside him dyed a dark blue. His eyes were a piercing grey, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and gentle, like a soft woolen blanket.

“Come, child - we have far to travel, and the night is growing cold.”

I nodded wordlessly, and took my sleeping child from Dagda, following Colm into the trees. Turning back quickly, I kissed Dagda and his wife on the cheek, watching as they shimmered and melted into thin air before I turned back to Colm and began our journey.

I lost my mother when I was twelve. Brain aneurysm. One minute, she was fine. The next minute, she was dead on the floor.

That left me with my dad.

Dad was a Marine. He’d joined back in seventy-six – three years before I was born. He just did miss the Vietnam Conflict, so since he couldn’t go off to war, he became a drill instructor. And for six years, that was all he lived and breathed.

It carried over to his home life, too, something Mom and I hated. There was nothing like getting woke up at o’dark-thirty by his voice booming out that the floors weren’t clean to his specifications, or my things weren’t squared away, or … anything really. He was obsessed.
Mom had been something of a peace-maker, so with her gone … I caught the full-brunt of his anger.

My bed was to be made every single morning without fail, and if he couldn’t bounce a goddamned quarter off of it, I got beat within an inch of my life. My socks and underwear had to be folded to his precise specifications, and if they weren’t? I got my ass beat. My clothes were to be hung according to color and type, and if they weren’t? You guessed it. I wore bruises for the next week.

I was made to take over all the chores also. All the cleaning, the laundry, the lawn … my job, while Dad sat and drank. Dad drank a lot, too. Not cheap beer either – no, Dad like the good shit. Bourbon, mostly, though he was partial to Jack Daniels as well.

My old man was a motherfucker. A genuine, Grade-A motherfucker.

Once I brought home a B in English, and he lost his fucking mind.

“What the hell is this shit?” he yelled, face mottled with anger and drink. “Are you a goddamned retard, boy?”

“No, sir,” I replied, not meeting his eyes.

“Well I think you goddamned are!” he yelled, and shoved me against the wall with his nose inches from mine. “You bring home anything less than a goddamned A again, I’m gonna show you what hell is, you hear me?”

“Aye, sir!” I yelled. It was the answer he expected from me.

“Drop and give me fifty!” he yelled.

I hated my old man. I absolutely fucking hated him. All this regiment shit, the chores, getting woke up in the middle of the night for some imagined fuck-up, being made to run in circles on the lawn while he hosed me down with ice water … he made my life a living hell. I couldn’t fucking go out with friends – well, what friends I had. Living with him didn’t make it easy for me to have friends. As for dating? Yeah, right! All the girls thought I was weird, thanks to the way he made me dress and the fucking high-and-tight that I’d better not let get a centimeter too long.

Four years after Mom passed away, my maternal grandfather showed up on our doorstep.

Grandpa Alasdair MacDougall, born and raised in Scotland and from where I’d gotten my red hair and green eyes, was not a small man. He stood a good six-foot-five, and weighed at least two-fifty. That red hair was shot through liberally with white, but those green eyes were keen.

He’d taken one look at the yellowing bruise around my eye and growled. “That worthless father of yours done this to you, lad?” he asked, his brogue thick.

I didn’t want to answer him, knowing Dad would beat the shit out of me for it.

Green eyes narrowed, and Grandpa harrumphed. “He lays one hand on ye while I’m around, he’ll find out it’s not a good for his health and that’s a promise.”

“How long are you staying, Grandpa?” I asked, curious.

He winked at me. “Until I’m satisfied he’ll not be beating the shit out of you anymore.”

To say that Dad wasn’t happy about my grandfather being there was the understatement of the year. He couldn’t yell at me with Grandpa there, and he couldn’t haul me out of bed in the middle of the night for impromptu ice baths outside, and he sure as shit couldn’t beat me.

“How long you planning on being here, Alasdair?” Dad asked him one Sunday evening, the muscles in his jaw working.

Grandpa looked up at Dad with an expression that gave me cold chills. “As long as I need to be here, John, and you just remember that,” he told him clearly.

“This is my goddamned house, and if I ask you to leave”--

Grandpa was on his feet and in my dad’s face so fast it was like a blur. “Now you clean the shit out of your ears and listen to me, Railev,” he hissed. “This isn’t your goddamned house – I paid for it for my daughter and grandson to have a good place to live. It’s not like you were ever able to provide anything for them, with your failed career.”

I knew I was gaping, but … this was news to me. I always thought Dad bought our house. And what was this about his failed career?

Grandpa grabbed my dad by his throat and squeezed. “You ever talk to my grandson like that again, it’ll be the last thing you ever do, Railev.”

A few days later, when Grandpa was teaching me the fine art of chess, I asked about my dad’s career.

“Alec, your father didn’t retire from the Marines,” he answered quietly. “Have you ever wondered why he didn’t go to work when he came out? Or why he never had any credit cards, or anything in his name?”

“It never occurred to me, Grandpa,” I answered honestly. “Mom took care of everything, and I guess I thought Dad had his pension from the VA.”

Grandpa uttered a bark of a laugh. “Well, here’s the truth, lad – your father was given a dishonorable discharge for things that he did that you’re better off not knowing about. Your mother was my only child, so … the money came from me. I’ve been taking care of you this whole time, Alec. But I had a feeling, so here I am.” He paused, and a smile formed. “I think it’s time you learned how to drive. What do you say?”

Life was different with my grandpa around. He was stern when he needed to be, but fair. He explained things to me, so that I understood when I had fucked up and I could correct it, instead of just screaming at me and beating me senseless like Dad would. He was the father figure I needed, and a friend as well.

One Friday night when I was driving us to dinner, he gave me this look. “I notice you don’t go to church,” he remarked.

I shrugged. “I don’t see the point, Grandpa. Seems to me most churches are corrupt, and the people don’t seem to understand their own religion.”

“I knew my grandson was smart,” he teased. “Alec, I think it’s time you learned about the old ways.”

“The old ways?” I echoed, confused.

“Aye, lad,” he confirmed. “The way of things before Christianity, when the land was still wild and people still talked to their gods.”

“Um, Grandpa … people talk to God, you know,” I pointed out.

“So they do, but tell me something: does their God show up and talk to them back?”

That was something I hadn’t really thought about until then. “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure,” I replied.

“That’s a fair answer,” Grandpa conceded. “I’ll ask you that again, in a year.”

Grandpa taught me about the energy in the earth, how to work with land wights and the Fae, and how to ground myself. I learned how to read cards, teas leaves, how to use water for scrying and smoke also, and which herbs were useful for what. He told me that until someone came to me, it was best that I left things open for whichever of the gods to pick up, and to always be respectful toward them all.

He also taught me the art of execrational spellwork.

“Now, Alec, hear and understand me, lad,” he said, his expression grim. “The only reason I’m teaching you this is because there may come a time in your life when it’s the only way. But I want you to give me your word you’ll not use such a thing unless you have no other way of dealing with your situation.”

“I swear, Grandpa,” I replied solemnly.

The energies used for execration was dark, heavy. I could almost reach out and grab it, it seemed like. And the gods that dealt with that aspect of things were not to be fucked with. No, these were ancient, powerful, primal beings that made the entire room go dark with their presence.

I knew my grandpa was a powerful man. I had seen him do things when he was teaching me that I couldn’t explain. But it wasn’t until my senior year that I found out just how powerful he was.

My dad resented the fuck out of him being there, since it meant he couldn’t use me as his free labor and punching bag. By my senior year, I was every bit as tall as his dad, if not a bit taller, and I’d gotten pretty muscular. In short, I wasn’t a scrawny little shit anymore. Now that I had some size on me, I noted the way my dad was looking at me, like he was sizing me up.

I was starting to feel my oats, and since I’d won the fights I’d gotten in at school, I figured it was time to put my old man in his fucking place. So the next time I caught him looking at me like that, I bowed up at him. “The fuck are you staring at, old man?” I spat.

“I will mop the goddamned floor with you, boy,” he growled, and charged me like a grizzly.

I had the advantage of being a hell of a lot younger and quicker, but Dad didn’t know the meaning of a fair fight. I was about to put him on the ground, and the fucker pulled a knife on me.

“John Railev, what in the bloody fucking hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m about to teach this miserable whelp a lesson he’ll never goddamned forget, and there ain’t shit you can do about it,” Dad replied.

I had never in my life seen such an inhuman look of rage on someone’s face before. My grandpa … my grandpa was one scary bastard when he was pissed. Those green eyes shot flames, and the whole room dropped twenty degrees.

“Oh, really?” Grandpa oozed, and something ancient and not human appeared beside him. “Let me show you how wrong you are, John Railev.”

That massive, black-skinned and black-eyed being walked over and gently drew me away from my dad. When I was out of the way, it cocked its head at my dad, who was now white as a sheet with his eyes bugged out of his head. “Children are precious, John Railev,” it said, in a voice that sounded like shattering glass. “Let me teach you why you should not treat your offspring badly.”

I stood beside my grandpa who still didn’t quite look human and watched as that ancient being stood my dad up against the wall. When he was upright, whip-like tentacles sprouted from its back and began to flay him where he stood. His clothing was shredded immediately, and bloody welts began forming not long after.

“Oh, God, please stop!” Dad yelled, trying to curl up in a ball on the floor to escape those vicious black tentacles.

Grandpa gave this great, booming laugh. “God has nothing to do with it, John – don’t you understand that yet?”

“You’ve got balls to ask me to stop, after what you put my daughter through and the way you’ve treated my grandson – not to mention all the little girls you molested while you were still in the Corps!” Grandpa yelled.

That being uttered a roar then, exposing sharp teeth as long as my fucking hand. Those black eyes swiftly turned to flames, and claws sprang from its fingertips. “Defiler of children!” it roared, shaking the whole fucking house. “Thou shalt not suffer a pedophile to live!”

I watched as it punched those daggers through my dad’s chest and ripped his still-beating heart out to shove it into his mouth.

Half an hour later, it was like my dad had never been in the picture. Whatever that being was, or whoever it was, it erased all signs of my dad from the house. Clothing, photos, liquor … everything. It took everything with it, leaving me with Grandpa.

Grandpa sighed, shaking his head before turning to look at me. “I should have done this after you were born, when I found out what your dad was doing while he was away, Alec,” he told me. “But I foolishly thought having a son would turn him around. No. It just made him worse, and he finally got caught when you were eight. He spent three years at Leavenworth, and then they threw him out. If I’d just taken out the garbage back then, your mother might still be alive today. I know the stress did her in.”

Figured I'd give y'all a true story. Yes, everything written here is true. If my sister were still alive, she could confirm it since my half-brother no longer talks to me now that I have cancer.

I grew up in a really small town. But bad things happen even in small towns, and mine was no exception.

When I was ten, two men bought some land up on Taylor’s Ridge half an hour away from me and built themselves a house. They built it all by hand – they didn’t hire out. It was a nice brick two-story house, with very unusual décor. One man was Catholic, the other … well, it was confirmed that he had some sort of ties to LaVey’s Satanic Church because canceled checks were found. Plus, well, he had a pretty substantial occult library and his bedroom had interesting figures carved into the furniture. The two men were lovers to boot, so add all that up and of course the townsfolks are going to be a bit uneasy.

On December 8th, 1982 both men were murdered in cold blood. Even the two Mastiffs they owned were shot dead. Why? Money, what else? These two low-life hillbillies thought they were gonna get rich off those two men because obviously, they had to be wealthy to live like they did. Flawed logic right there. Those two weren’t hurting anyone, and they lived off the land as much as possible. They weren’t rich.

It was a tragedy that rocked the community for years.

Well, years down the road my brother (the Marine) and his wife at the time started making noises about wanting to see this place. My brother has a huge ego, understand that, and he didn’t like that his big sister was going to all these cool haunted places and not taking him with. I had told him I really didn’t think it was a good idea to go – I’d been, and this place is very protective of itself. I don’t know how to explain it really, other than to say there’s documented proof that people who go and fuck with shit or take things with them tend to end up fucked up.

For example, a friend of mine. He’s a good guy, a bit young, but a good guy for the most part. He’d asked me along for a day trip with some friend of his I didn’t know, and of course I went because that place called to me. It felt like home. I guess my energy and the energy of the place was compatible, I dunno. I’m fucking weird anyhow. Well, we get there and I go off on my own to look around and check things out. Next thing I know, I literally feel this ripping sensation and the squirrels are screaming. I go running back to find them, and dumbass has ripped open one of the doors. I knew that was bad, but I couldn’t tell him anything.

Next night, maybe the night after, he’s in a car wreck. His padded, cloth-covered windshield visor fucking scalps his ass. Through his ball cap. Yeah, don’t fuck with shit out there.

My brother finally wears me down, and I agree to take him and his wife and our mutual friend and his fucking wife out there. It’s a carload. Now, the way out there is really strange. Taylor’s Ridge is a bizarre fucking place anyhow – plenty of stories about weird shit happening there. But you turn off the main road onto an unmarked paved road, and that road dead-ends into a rutted, raggedy dirt road. And it is precisely thirteen miles to this place from there.

I drive up there. My brother’s driving irritates the shit out of me anyhow, and he doesn’t know where we’re going. So I drive his SUV there and park at the subtle little pull-off. Then we fucking ruck for about two miles to reach the actual ruins of the house and all. It’s gone past midnight. I’m not afraid, not for my sake, but something ain’t right about this night. So I’m more alert than usual. Hypervigilant is a better word.

It’s too quiet for me. Usually, there will be some small noise, even that late at night. Critters, you know? Or a breeze.
Something at least. But the air is dead still, and it’s a bit cold even though it’s the middle of July. I get us all to the back gate in one piece, and then I make sure to tell everyone in tones that brook no fucking argument, “don’t touch anything here. Leave it the fuck alone. We are guests, got it?” I touch the stone gate as a sign of respect – something I’ve always done – and we enter the actual property.

I show them the ruins of the house, the two chemical toilets, and I explain how everything was set up. I know the history on this place very fucking well. I take them around to where the chicken house was, the rose garden, and then we walk to the front to the sometimes dry and sometimes not dry pond. See, there’s this huge slab of stone down in it that I like to sit on and just zone out. Like I said, this place is peaceful to me, like I belong there. So I go to the slab and sit down and let them kinda look around some.

Oh boy, this doesn’t sound good. I get up and turn around and walk over to where all four of them are standing and staring at something up on the ridgeline. And at first, I’m like “oh shit, it’s law enforcement out here – what the hell am I going to tell them?” See, the land is and isn’t private property. I don’t actually know who owns it. And we’d gone on a weeknight, so we should have been safe. But I’m looking at two flashlights up the ridgeline bobbing along like they’re looking for something or someone. Well, fuck.

And then … everything completely changes and I no longer know what the fuck I’m seeing.

Those two lights met and became one big ball. And this big fucking orb of light is now slowly floating down the hill right for us. And there are dozens of smaller lights swirling around inside the fucking thing.

Ever seen one of those big balls of lights you can use as a tree topper? Yeah. Think something like that rolling around towards you, only all the lights are the same pale amber and the fucking thing is the size of a goddamned beach ball at least.

I’m standing there absolutely flummoxed. Mouth sort of hanging open, because my brain can’t fucking process what I just saw and what’s happening now. I’m damned near transfixed by this thing, but I don’t sense any danger from it towards anyone … except for my brother’s wife. It’s right about then that I realize what I’m looking at. It’s just in a form I hadn’t seen before. Now I don’t have a technical name for these things. They’re entities that exist on another plane from us. I just call them soul eaters, because they literally suck the life out of you and leave you a goddamned vegetable.

I let it get really close, and then I was forced to take action. Someone whispered in my ear “get them out of here quietly, and be sure you’re the last one out.” Sage advice, really. So I turned to my companions and very quietly said “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do, and you’d better fucking do as I say. We’re going to about-face and walk out of here in a quiet orderly fashion, and no one is to fall behind me. We clear?”

So that’s what happened. We walked quietly back to his car, not talking about anything. But the second we reached his car, of course everyone wanted to know what the fuck just happened. Even our mutual friend, the biker dude who was a complete skeptic about everything was asking what the fuck he just saw. I told them just like I told you here – only I didn’t say it wanted to eat my brother’s wife. I didn’t think that was kosher at that point. Well, we start to get in the SUV and my brother goes “Jade, come here and look at this shit.”

Fuck. I go around to the back of his SUV, and bigger than shit are these huge paw prints. Yes, I know rural areas like that have bear and coyote and wolves, and even the occasional panther, but …. Something about them doesn’t look right to me. I didn’t say that though. I told him it was probably a wild dog or something to keep everyone quiet, but believe me, that was no wild dog or even a panther. The claw marks …. Hell no. I’ve seen too many tracks from big cats and bears and wolves, and it wasn’t matching any of them.

I let my brother drive us out of there because I need to think. On one of my visits, I’d gotten knocked down by something really big. It wasn’t an attack. It wanted to play. I know this because the second it had me down, I felt something nuzzle me to be sure I was okay. And I know it wasn’t Beelzebub, the bigger male Mastiff those two guys kept that had been killed. Yeah, there’s another hint right there that he was into the occult. So I’m thinking it was my friendly beast that left those marks on the back of his SUV.

Anyhow. That was pretty much the last time I was up there because I wound up moving over an hour away and now my brother and I don’t talk. I'd like to go back sometime, but I’d have to find someone trustworthy to go with me that has an SUV or a truck – my sports car won’t make it.

This was the very first visit I made to the same location "Orb In The Woods" is about. God, I miss my sister.

September 2009.

I enjoy ghost hunting. I’ve been all over this state hunting down places that were reputed to be haunted. Some panned out, some didn’t.

I’ve got this much younger male friend – let’s call him Jay – who’s interested in the occult and paranormal. He’s spending a lot of time at my apartment talking to me about various things, and I’m doing my best to make sure he stays safe while he’s exploring. A lot of people end up hurt with the occult because they either don’t do their homework or they get in a hurry, or they just do it for shits and giggles.

Kids, don’t fuck with what you don’t know. That’s my only warning here.

Well, he brings up that he’s heard about this place some little ways up towards the next town. Someplace haunted. And it’s got a bad, bad reputation.

I press for more detail, and he tells me it’s a house in the woods and the owners were shot and killed because they were “devil worshippers”. That doesn’t surprise me any. This is the heart of the Bible Belt here, and these fine, upstanding good ole southern Baptists don’t take kindly to anyone who doesn’t worship God. But then I remember a photo in my possession, a photo a friend had given me back in high school some twenty years ago. I dig it out, show it to him, and his eyes widen.

“How do you have a picture of that house?” he asks.

I shrug. “Frankie gave it to me back in my sophomore year,” I say, and add, “you know, because I’m one of those devil worshippers.”

My photo is the same place he’s telling me about, and he tells me he’s going to see if his friend knows where the hell it is.

The next night, he shows up at my door excited. “He told me how to get there,” he says as he walks into the apartment. “So, do you wanna go?”

I eye the clock. Just a bit past nine. “Yeah, but let me call June first, okay?” I say, picking up my cell to give my sister a ring. When she answered, I explained that Jay’s friend had given him directions to the place from my photo. And I tell her we’re about to head up there.

“Not without me, you’re not,” she states. “No ma’am, you are not going up to that place without taking me. There’s no telling what you’ll accidentally set loose.”

I can’t argue with that logic, so Jay and I leave my apartment to go pick up June. And away we go, up 27 to the place of nightmares from the research I’d done online. I’d read all manner of horror stories about people getting badly hurt for taking items from the land or vandalizing. I don’t mean just a little bad luck. I mean ER visits, broken bones, and almost dying. So I know that whatever is protecting this place is really powerful.

We ride along in the warmth of Jay’s truck for a good half hour. June needs something to drink, so we stop at the last convenient store left on the way there. She goes inside, buys her drink, and then calls a friend to tell her where she’s going.

Yes, this place has a name, but I really don’t want to put it here. I’m sure most of you are pretty smart and can figure it out on your own anyhow. So, let me say this to you, and I really hope you listen to me on this: stay the hell out. I mean that. Y’all have absolutely no idea what’s up there, but it’s not friendly and it doesn’t like people tromping all over the place fucking with things.

When she says the name of where we’re going, I hear her friend start yelling. She’s saying things like you’re going to get yourself killed, you’ll be cursed, demons are gonna drag you to hell …. And June just looks at me and winks and tells her she’ll be just fine because she’s with me. Her friend knows me, knows exactly what I am and what I can do, and gets real quiet. And after a while, she must have started talking again, because presently June says, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Back into Jay’s truck we go and head off down the road. It’s a cold, autumn night. No clouds in the sky, just the silver moon and stars lighting up the landscape. Jay’s truck is an old Ford he inherited from his grandpa, and it wheezes every few seconds. I found the sound oddly lulling, and quickly fell into a sort of trance-like state.

I came out of that state the moment he turned onto the narrow, twisty road leading to that place. I could feel … something. Something that was familiar – something that teased my own energies.

We drove a couple of miles down this road, and abruptly the pavement ended. Jay stopped just shy of rolling onto the gravel road and looked at us both. We nodded, and he started the truck forwards again.

It’s a good thing we were in a truck because that gravel road was bad. It had gullies and trenches in it, some of them so bad I was afraid we wouldn’t make it across. But Jay was a fairly proficient driver, neatly avoiding the worst of it and easing over what he couldn’t go around. We came to a crossroads, and he went left.

Now things started ramping up.

My energy is all but humming, and June’s sitting pressed up to me with her hand on mine. She’s got that look on her face, and I know she’s working to keep me balanced so I don’t accidentally open the gates of hell or something.

Jay is driving with his hands white-knuckled on the wheel and his eyes are wide. He’s scared, poor boy.

We rounded a corner, and I see something.

There, just on the edge of the woods, is a figure dressed in dark grey tattered robes. It has no face, no hands, no feet. It’s just floating there.

I’ve seen this before. It’s one of my Watchers. I’m safe.

June and Jay see it too, but June sees an old woman. Jay never quite said what he saw, but it terrified him.

Jay isn’t sure where the driveway to the place actually is, I find out. His friend gave him vague directions, as apparently, he’d never actually been there. So, we drive along slowly and come upon this little pull-off with a berm.

“Stop!” I order, pointing to the pull-off. “This is it.”

He pulls the truck off the road and into the pull-off and puts it into park.

The overgrown trail ahead of us, past the berm, is pulling away.

“What the fuck?” Jay mutters, staring.

June’s next to the door, so she opens it and gets out. But it doesn’t stop. The scenery ahead of us is still pulling away – or pushing us back one.

I get out next. The second my feet made contact with the ground, it all stops. June and Jay both look at me, and I shrug. Then I go over the berm and am part-way down the fucking driveway before June can stop me.

“We can’t be sure this is it,” she argues.

But I had seen a large dog lurking on the edge of the shadows that confirmed this was the driveway to the house. I turned and walked back to them standing at the berm, and when I do I see the rock with the arrow pointing in the direction I’d gone. I motion to it. “See, I’m right.”

None of us thought to bring a flashlight, something we had not thought of until that very moment staring down that darkened, clearly overgrown driveway. Jay rummages around in the truck and comes up with two very small ones. He offers one to June and the other to me, but I refuse. It’s best that he keeps the other light. They switch on the tiny lights, and off we go down the driveway.

Story has it that the owners of the house named their driveway – more of a road with how long it was – Dead Horse Lane when they found a dead horse on it the first day they arrived to start the build. As I’m walking along, neatly avoiding the large holes and the deadfall, I wonder how much truth there is to that story. The woods are watchful, in a word.

Close to a mile and a half later, we reach the back gate. We have arrived at the site of the murders, where the house once stood. The path we’d walked skirted around a large clearing that had water running across it – but from where? And somehow, I’m the only one who doesn’t have wet feet.

I approach the gates and put my hand on the left column of brick. We mean no harm, I say silently, my eyes scanning the dark woods beyond. Then I walk through.

The house is partially demolished. Only two-thirds of the bottom floor is still standing. The windows are gone completely, and the front door is a twisted piece of rusty metal. There is a circular brick wall that’s badly crumbled, set into where the back wall would have been, and I’m puzzled by it until I realize it may have been the stairs. The only structures left standing are the two chemical toilets, and ivy is growing over them both in thick ropey layers.

A strange sensation hits me as I’m looking around. This feels like home to me. But I’ve never been here before, not even in dreams.

Jay has gone to the chemical toilet on our right and is shining his light on something in front of the door. “Hey, what is this?” he asks.

June and I walk over. He’s shining his light on a chunk of mortar that has two pennies, head up, and some symbols with the word Marduk written on it. I recognize Marduk – he was a Sumerian god who defeated Tiamet. But the symbols are nonsense to me, and I don’t understand the pennies. The pennies would make sense if the god’s name were Hades, but it’s not. It’s Marduk. It’s like someone came along and just mixed up a lot of different theologies together whether they meshed or not.

I explain this to Jay, and June adds her thoughts as well. I take a photo of it to study later, and we move on.

We wander around the house on one of the trails, and as we walk I take note of the sacred geometry surrounding the place. There are trees and vines both growing in circular patterns all the way around the house. Yes, this land, this house, is well-protected. At the front of the house, only the lower section of the balcony is left, and ivy has taken it over as well. But there is a wide trail leading away from the front door, so we walk down it.

Maybe thirty feet away, to the right, is a large depression. I remember reading that this is the “sometimes dry, sometimes not dry” pond. There’s no water in it, and there’s a stone slab calling me so I venture down the bank to check it out. June and Jay both come with me. I sit down on the stone, and there is an almost instant connection. June sits down next to me, and Jay stands before us looking down at us.

“There is a lot of power here,” June states.

“Yeah, no shit,” Jay mutters, looking uneasy still. “Jade, what the hell is on this land?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, my attention caught by a pitch-black cloud that’s suddenly covering the moon. It isn’t a normal cloud at all. It really is black as ink.

June and Jay both look up to see what I’m staring at. June isn’t worried by the cloud, but Jay is.

“Let’s see what else is here,” June says, standing up from the stone.

At that moment, I’m aware of a presence behind me.

And at that moment, June sees a large dog standing at the rim of the pond.

I start to stand up … and something very big knocks me down.

“Jade, are you okay?” June asks, concerned.

I begin to laugh. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell her. “He just wanted to play.” I can feel the presence standing over me in excitement, not malice. It’s not here to hurt me, or them either. It approached me, because … well, I’ll get to that.

So, we leave the pond and take the trail that goes around the opposite side of the house to the back gate. On the way, we find what’s left of the chicken house and there’s another piece of mortar with something on it that’s so faint I can barely make it out. Without thinking, I start to reach for it before June can stop me.

Immediately, dozens of spiders come swarming out from the darkness around that chunk of mortar.

June sighs beside me. “See, that’s why I came along,” she says. “Please don’t do that again, Jade. What’s out here, I’m not strong enough to stand against.”

We lingered for a little longer, looking around. I took three photos while we were there total, the last of which was that chunk of mortar. Then we headed back to the truck, uneventfully.

Once we’re in the truck, and Jay’s turned us around, and we’re headed back to civilization, June turns to me. “Okay, what was that about at the stone slab?”

I smile. “I attracted the attention of something that wanted to play,” I tell her.

She sharpens her look. “What, Jade?”

“Hellhound,” I say simply. “I think I’m going to have to name him since he’s coming home with me.”

I’m an outdoorsy woman. I don’t really like being cooped up in a house all day. I do a fair amount of hiking, and I also cycle. I’ve got a nice road bike – Cannondale – and the trail here has some nice scenery, so all is good in my world.

The trail also has some unusual scenery, as I found out over the summer.

See, it runs from Atlanta to the Ala-damn-bama state line (yeah, yeah, I like to pick at our neighbors a bit, I had a blood sister that lives over there). All completely paved. Most of it goes through towns and residential areas, but there’s a couple of sections that are rather secluded.

And, it’s one of these sections I’m talking about.

I usually start at the 4 mile marker and go 20-40 miles round-trip when I ride. I’ve got a double water carrier plus the Camelbak from the military, and on top of my jersey having nice big pockets I have a pouch strapped under my saddle. So it’s perfectly feasible to go on long rides. I’ve got a multi-tool, spare tubes, those little canisters to air up your tires (sorry, can’t think what they’re actually called right now) … and I carry. Single woman alone on long hikes or bike rides, well it’s best to be prepared. Bad shit has happened on that trail to women.

I got up early one morning and decided I was going to ride to Rockmart. I’d be looking at 66 miles or so round-trip – doable in a day. I don’t dawdle on the trail – I keep moving at a steady clip.

So, I filled up my water bottles with Powerade, filled up the Camelbak, stuffed several packs of Gu and protein bars in my pockets, grabbed my wallet, keys, and phone, and loaded the bike up on the Jeep. I drove down to the depot parking lot, and headed off from there.

It was a nice day. Week day, so the trail was pretty deserted. I like it that way. I’m not much on people anymore. I’m booking along, averaging around 18mph according to my handy little speedometer, and just enjoying the ride. At the 13 mile marker, I enter the next county over. I’ve ridden all the way to the 22 mile marker – that’s the trestle bridge with Bone Man sitting under it (Bone Man is a plastic skeleton sitting under an umbrella with a fake drink in his hand by the creek – someone has an awesome sense of humor) – before, so I don’t really pay too close attention to the scenery until I hit that bridge.

I take a short break at the bridge, eat a protein bar, take some pictures with my phone, and then I’m off again. Now I’m in unfamiliar territory, so I’m looking at my surroundings pretty good. Like I said, bad shit has happened to a couple of women on this trail. I don’t want to use deadly force, but if push comes to shove I’m going home at the end of my ride by any means necessary.

There’s a really cool old trestle bridge about three miles from Bone Man, and I stop long enough to take some pictures of it too (I love taking pictures of odd or unusual things, sue me). Then it’s nothing but woods around me.

I did not expect to see what I did at the 31 mile marker.

I was in the ‘groove’, pedaling at a good clip up and around a curve, so when the tunnel loomed up in front of me seemingly out of nowhere, I nearly wrecked.

Sure, the trail has a couple of tunnels – underpasses, really. I’d already ridden through a few of those.

This, however, was no underpass. This was huge.

I walked the bike up to the entrance, scanning the area warily. The closer I drew to the entrance, the colder it got. Look, this was a day when the temps were hovering near triple digits – it didn’t make any reasonable sense to me for the air to be so cold I had goosebumps forming. It was frigid.

Water ran away from the tunnel in rocky streams on both sides of the trail. The tunnel …. I don’t know what it was made from. Stone, concrete, I have no idea. It was old. Lichen, moss, and mold grew all over the areas I could see. The ceiling of the thing was a good 20-30 feet high, and as for the other side? Hell, I could blot out the opening on the other end with the end of my pinky. I had no fucking idea how long it was.

And I really wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. Something felt off about this tunnel to me.

Yet, I found myself hopping back on my bike and slowly pedaling into it.

There were lights inside, every fifty feet or so, high up on the walls. A few of them were burned out, and a few of them just turned off when I got close. That didn’t bother me so much. I mean, it was broad daylight.

No, it was the doors that bothered me.

They were set back into the material of the tunnel itself a few feet – recessed, you know? And the wood was old, decayed, rotting.

I scanned along the walls on both sides ahead of me, spotting more further down. I counted them up in my head – thirteen.

Thirteen? That couldn’t be right. I stopped the bike and counted again.

I never should have done that.

Utter darkness filled the opening of the tunnel I was facing, like a wall of onyx dropping to close it off. I whipped my head around, and … yeah, this wasn’t good. I was trapped in that tunnel.

I’ve been in some bad places in my life, and I’ve seen some pretty horrific things. My Patron deity once locked me in a casket with a corpse to prove a point to me, for fuck’s sake. And then there’s the Dead Horse. But whatever was happening in that tunnel was on a scale of one to hell motherfucking no, and it was on the high side of hell motherfucking no.

The lights flickered and went out, two by two. I’m straddled my bike, dead-center of that trail, about a hundred yards from where I came in and who the hell knew how far from the exit on the other side. “Belial, if this is another of your tests, this time it really isn’t a good time,” I state calmly, inwardly hoping that it is my Patron doing this. Because if it isn’t? I might really be up shit creek.

No answer.

Shit. It isn’t him. He’d have said so, or done something I’d recognize.

Then I remember my cell phone in the carrier on my bike. I take it out of the carrier and turn it on, using it as a pseudo-flashlight in the darkness. Man, it’s like I’m standing in the Abyss … wait. That smell. Oh god, I know that smell. This is going to suck.

All thirteen of those wooden doors slam open. By the light of my phone, I can see dark liquid pooling out into the tunnel. It’s viscous … this isn’t water. I turn to the door closest to me and shine the light on the ground.

It’s blood.

Right.

“All I wanted to do was ride to Rockmart and back,” I mutter to myself. “Not get trapped in a tunnel and drowned in blood.” Curious, I try to make a call out. No signal. Of course.

And that’s when the undead start filing out of the doors, staring at me. I can’t get an approximate age on them, because they’re too decomposed. I can’t even tell gender. All I can do is sit there on my bike and watch as what seems to me like dozens of walking, rotting horrors exit those doors and form a ring around me.

They look hungry, too.

Idly I wonder if a shot to the head really will kill them, and then on the heels of that, I remember I didn’t bring an extra clip. I’ve got nine shots, total, and I’m pretty sure there’s more of them than that. “Think,” I mutter to myself, keeping the phone on so I can keep track of them.

When no more walk out of the doors, they just stand there in silence, staring at me. They don’t move. They don’t blink. They just stand and stare.

“What can I possibly do for you?” I asked suddenly, letting my gaze make a circle around.

No reply. Not even a flicker of expression.

“So it’s bully tactics, is it?” I asked, my voice sharp. “You think you’re gonna fucking scare me? Are you fucking serious?” I swing off my bike, phone in hand, and gently lower the bike to the ground. “Do I look like a woman who scares easily?”

Pissed that my nice day trip has now been ruined, I take a step towards one of them. “Get back in your fucking hole, god damn you!” I hiss.

I’m a bit startled when it turns around and walks back to the door it came out of. I’m also relieved – now I have a plan. I channel that anger right back up, throw my arms straight out to either side and in my best, no-nonsense drill sergeant voice I order “get back in your fucking holes you goddamned low-life parasites! Go! Go! Get back in your fucking hole where you fucking came from, now!”

When the last one has gone through the wooden door, the blood seeps back in and the doors close. The lights flicker and come back on. And the impenetrable darkness lifts from either end of the tunnel.

I turn around in a circle, looking. “What – just what in the motherfucking hell was that about?” I ask aloud.

Ward yourself, Priestess…

I don’t see the Dead Horse, but that was definitely him. And his response is scolding, as it should be. I’ve forgotten, once again.
Sighing, I go pick up my bike and put my phone back in its holder. Swinging a leg over, I start to pedal off towards Rockmart when I see one door swinging open. “Hey!” I yell. “Close that damned door!” The door shuts immediately, and I shake my head. “Fucking undead brats,” I mutter, and head for Rockmart.

It was my weekend off, and I was looking forward to relaxing at the house and hanging out with Red, Hiren, Nara, and Raithe. We usually just met up at the pub, had a few drinks, shot the shit, got a bite to eat, and then went our respective ways.

“God, I’m getting old,” I muttered, looking at the silver that streaked my shoulder-length black hair and my eyebrows as well. “Well, it ain’t like I’m trying to impress someone.” Strapping on the black leather hip pouch I always wore, I fished my keys out and headed for the garage.

As I stepped out into the growing twilight, the smell of burning ozone assaulted me. “What the hell?” I muttered, looking around. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary – nothing was burning, and I didn’t see smoke in the air. Shaking it off, I went on to the garage to get in my Jeep and head for the pub.

When I got to the junction of Nine and Twelve, the smell was a hell of a lot stronger, and I noted that the sky to the northeast looked a bit … odd. It wasn’t right. The color was somehow wrong. Deciding it needed checking out, I kept going down Nine instead of turning on Twelve.

It was at the entrance to the ore mines that shit really got weird. I could see a line of darkness reaching up into the sky, a line that twisted and undulated slowly. “What the fuck is this,” I murmured, and turned in. I rolled along in first gear, keeping an eye on that column of onyx that reached to the havens, at least until I reached Big Blue.

Big Blue was the name given to the larger of the two pools out there. It was the size of a lake and an intense, azure blue that sparkled like a jewel in the light. No one had ever found the bottom of it to my knowledge, either. Yet folks still dove in periodically, despite the signs telling them to stay the hell out. And periodically I’d get called out along with the medics to see to the friends left on the banks.

See, folks that dove into Big Blue never came back out again. Hence the warning. I’m not sure why they never came back out – it’s just one of those things folks talk about in the county that never really gets answered.

In case you missed it, Grey County ain’t what you’d call a normal county. But I liked it there just fine, so I stayed.

Big Blue wasn’t blue anymore. It was as black as the column that rose out of it, and it pitched and roiled like a miniature ocean during a hurricane. Where that black water slapped the shoreline, it left thick tendrils of sludge behind.

“Yeah, okay then,” I said and reached for my phone. “Hey, ah, Raithe, we’ve got a situation out here at the ore mines,” I told him. “I think you might want to come see this shit.”

“Ah, hell, I’m on my way,” he said and hung up.

I just sat there in the Jeep, looking from the column to the pool. On about my third good look, I realized something else.

There were dead things littered all around it, and the dead things had attracted scavengers the likes of which I’d never seen.

They looked like maggots, but they were three times the size and mottled looking. As I watched with no little bit of disgust, I noticed that the damned things were scenting the air to find their dinner. I also noticed that they were all crawling out of that pool.

I heard a vehicle approaching at a good clip, and presently saw Raithe’s Jeep slide up beside mine. As he took in the sight, his face wore the same bewildered expression I was sure that I wore. Another vehicle slid to a stop behind us, and I saw that Red and Hiren had followed Raithe.

“What the fuck?” Red exclaimed.

“You got me,” I called back. “I’ve seen a lot of weird shit, but this might beat the fucking night we saw the river come out of its banks.”

“It’s a goddamned portal,” Raithe said then, looking grim.

“A portal to what, though?” I asked him. “And how the hell do you shut the fucking thing down?”

He sighed, running a hand through his long, white hair. “Looks like I’m gonna have to call in a friend for this,” he said.

I shot Red and Hiren a quizzical look – the sheriff had never needed to call anyone in on anything that happened before, and I wondered just who this friend was. But they threw their hands up at me, so they didn’t know either. “Raithe, who are you calling?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he said and stepped out of his Jeep to start calling in a language I’d never heard before. I turned back to Red and Hiren and noticed that Hiren had gone white as a sheet. “Hey Kav, you alright back there?” I asked.

“Oh, shit,” he swore. “He’s calling Vê.”

“Who the hell is Vê?” I pushed.

“Death god,” Hiren replied.

I didn’t quite know what to say to that, so I just turned around. “Raithe … knows a death god,” I mumbled, unable to process it. “I don’t think that’s a good thing, somehow.”

“Why?”

I nearly came out of my skin, recoiling against my door with wide eyes as I took in the passenger I had suddenly acquired.

Eyes like black mirrors, no whites to them at all, gazed at me calmly. His skin was like bone china, so pale it would have shown veins if he had any. Hair as black as my own had once been fell in a curtain around him, blending in with the black velvet robes he wore. He raised one inky eyebrow at me in question. “Why would his knowing me be a bad thing?” he asked, his voice pitched so low it was like the distant rumble of thunder.

“You’re a death god,” I said simply.

“And you view that as bad?”

I furrowed my brow. “Um … well … you know, I don’t know how to view it. We’ve got a fucking portal that I don’t know where it came from or how it happened, and I think that takes precedence right now.”

Chuckling, he exited my Jeep and I realized how tall he was. He had to be seven feet, if not taller. How the hell had he fit in my goddamned Jeep?

“Vê,” Raithe greeted.

Vê nodded at Raithe, his gaze turning to the scene before us. “You know the residents here,” he said. “Is there anyone with power enough to do this?”

Raithe thought for a long, hard moment. “Other than myself and Raven there, I can’t say that there is,” he replied.

Taking a deep breath, I got out of my Jeep and walked up to them. “Why?” I asked.

Vê put one hand on my shoulder …

Instantly, memories flooded my mind – memories that were and weren’t mine. I watched myself in battle somewhere, sword in hand as I charged something. Moments later I felt a blade run through me and cried out in pain. As I fell, I saw familiar black robes approach …

“Why the hell do I know you?” I demanded, jerking away from Vê.

“You think about that, Raven, and then you tell me,” he said simply. “For now, you will help me close this.”

I started to argue with him that I hadn’t opened the goddamned thing and therefore didn’t know how to close it either, but thought better of it. He was a lot bigger than I was, and well … he was a god. Uneasy, I just stared up at him in silent consent.

He put his hand back on my shoulder, and suddenly I was a passenger in my own body. I could only watch, a bit horrified, as the three of us walked to the edge of that pool. That ancient, foreign language coming from all three of us, sounding more like curses than anything to my ears. The water rose up in a black sheet before us, and a guttural growl left my throat right before I began screaming at it. Power coursed through me, from where I didn’t know and feared to ask, and I raised both hands with palms outward. I heard myself utter one more thing, in a tone that was pure rage …

A bolt of brilliant white struck the pool, severing the blackened, twisting column neatly. There was a deafening shriek that made me want to cover my ears, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have control back yet.

That wall of black water formed a fist and slammed down on me before anyone could do anything. I felt myself being crushed, and my world went black.

As I floated along in limbo, more memories came back to me unbidden. Memories of a place I had never been. Of a me, that wore leather armor and kept long black hair in a single braid. Who am I? I wondered, not recognizing anything.

You were my priestess, once upon a time. But there was a great war, and you were destroyed in battle while defending my temple.

Irritated, I tried to turn to face him, but I could see nothing still. If I was your precious priestess, why the hell didn’t you save me? I demanded.

Because even the gods are not omniscient, Raven. We are not infallible, he told me, and his voice sounded weary.

“Come on, girl, cough that shit up,” Raithe said, and presently something struck me on the back hard enough that I vomited.

“Thatta girl,” Raithe expressed, pulling me upright once I had finished dry-heaving. A damp cloth was wiped over my face, and then I was able to open my eyes to look around.

Raithe sat beside me on the ground, and Red and Hiren opposite us.

“Hell of a thing,” Hiren expressed, shaking his head in shock. “Priestess to Vê … I never once in a million fucking years would have guessed that. But seeing what happened here today? I sure as hell can’t question it.”

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” I said, cringing at how hoarse I was. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

As he helped me to my feet, I turned to look at the pool. It was back to normal, with no signs that anything had been wrong. The shoreline was clean – there were no dead things, and no mutant maggots to be found.

Neither, I discovered, was Vê though.

“He’s gone then?” I asked.

“For the moment,” Raithe told me. “He left this with me, to give to you, and said to tell you he would be back. He knows you have a lot of questions, I think.”

I looked at the necklace he held out to me. It was pure onyx or appeared to be, but it had something carved into it that I couldn’t make out. Sighing, I slipped it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt. “It’s not onyx, is it?” I asked, feeling the cold it gave off.

“If I find out I’m kin to you, I will beat you if you go telling people,” I warned. “I have a reputation to protect, asshole.”

Red and Raithe just laughed at that, though Hiren didn’t seem to find it amusing.

“I’m hurt,” he pouted.

“Liar,” I countered, and that grin came back full-force.

“I had to tease you some, Raven, you know that.”

“I’m sure it won’t be the last time, either,” I muttered, opening the door to my Jeep to climb back inside. “So, what did you do on your weekend off, Lieutenant? Oh, not much, just found out I was a priestess to a death god and closed a fucking portal to god knows where,” I said aloud, and shook my head. “Yeah, no one’s going to believe that shit.”

Malachai wanted to see the lotion Micah had given me to use that night, of course. He also wanted to go through everything in Micah’s office, including his private journal.

Even though I knew he had good reason to want all that, I didn’t like how it made me feel that this strange man would have intimate knowledge about me and about my deceased husband.

My expression must have told him how I felt, because he sighed and sat down on the chair by the couch. “Remember me telling you I had memories of my own?” he asked softly, and pulled out his wallet. Not saying another word, he handed me a photo from inside, one that was worn around the edges.

A pretty brunette, and a little girl that was the spitting image of Malachai looked out from that photo, and I felt my heart clench hard in my chest.

“Sasha would have been eight this year,” Malachai told me, his face pained. “Sam and I had been married for four years – Sasha was three in that photo. We met at church, Selene. Sam was … one of my best singers in the choir.”

“You … were a preacher?” I asked, gobsmacked.

A sad smile appeared. “Yeah, I was, Selene,” he confirmed. “Started when I was twenty-five. I had a good congregation, a nice little house, but I wanted a family. Sam was shy, sweet, compassionate. I fell in love with her the second year she’d been a member.” He paused. “Harry took them both from me, Selene. I thought my faith in God would save them, would protect them from that sort of evil. I was horribly wrong.”

“Was Micah …?”

“No, angel, your husband was a little too young back then to be helping Harry, I think,” Malachai said. “Suffice it to say, when Harry took them from me my faith got shaken in a way I couldn’t restore. God couldn’t help me – he hadn’t lifted a finger to help me, rather. So, I quit and started studying the occult instead. I was determined that Harry would never touch another soul, if it meant me dying with the son of a bitch. It’s been a grueling five years, Selene, but I swear on my wife and daughter that I can end Harry for good this time.”

I let him have the bottle of lotion, and full access to Micah’s office.

For the next two nights, Malachai studied everything he found regarding Harry. Micah provided the link he didn’t have before, a more intimate look at Harry Thomas Woods than he’d had prior.

Friday was unusually busy at the plant; I ran from the time I walked in until nine that night, weighing trucks out and delivering mail plus taking care of the contractors working in the plant. Malachai watched Chloe, keeping her busy with her mobile and her toys until I caught a break. Once everything settled down, I pulled out my water from the little fridge to drink. “It’s not usually quite that busy,” I explained, blowing hair out of my face.

Malachai nodded, his eyes on Chloe who babbled happily and watched her mobile go round. “Harry will try for her again this weekend,” he told me plainly. “It’s Halloween weekend, Selene.”

“My God, it is isn’t it?” I echoed, surprised at how fast the time had gone. I’d taken two months after Chloe was born to get adjusted, and then returned to my shift at the plant. I’d thought everything was going to be okay, when nothing happened the first two weeks I was back. “What do we do?”

Those black eyes locked on mine. “Whatever I tell you to do, you need to follow it to the letter,” he replied. “Don’t deviate, Selene. I know you’ll want to, but you can’t. If you do, you’ll lose Chloe for good.”

“Alright,” I agreed weakly, frightened by his words.

At around two in the morning, the headless creature returned. This time, it was a lot closer to the guard house, and I got a better look at it. Where the neck would have been was raw, oozing flesh. The moth-eaten fur hid dead flesh. Its paws were raw and inflamed, and that was what was causing the stilted movements I guessed.

Malachai just watched it go, silent.

I wanted to ask him what it was, but the expression on his face was angry-looking. So I said nothing, trying to get back into the book I’d been reading.

The rest of Friday night passed uneventfully, and I was thankful for that but I knew tomorrow would be worse somehow. Tomorrow was Halloween. Tomorrow Harry would try for Chloe again. I just hoped that Malachai was strong to beat him.

I had taken to lying down with Chloe in bed with me, after my shower. I didn’t want to leave her in her crib in her room, not with Harry so determined to get her. She and I went to bed around eight that morning, and my alarm was set for four. She went off to sleep easily, and I drifted off not long afterwards.

When I next opened my eyes, Chloe wasn’t there.

At first it didn’t sink in, that my baby was not in bed with me. But when it did, I panicked. Lunging out of bed in just my night shirt and panties, I tore out of my bedroom and started looking for her in the house.

I was the only one in the house. Malachai was missing too.

“What the hell is going on?” I screamed, pulling at my hair and going in circles trying to figure out what I needed to do next. The door to Micah’s study was open slightly, drawing me over to it.

Inside stood Harry and Malachai both, and they had Chloe on Micah’s desk in the middle of some elaborate symbols. Micah was there also, and when he saw me at the door he smiled broadly. “Won’t you join us, Selene?” he beckoned. “Join us, and have all the power you could ever want.”

“No!” I yelled, and tried to shove through the door to get my daughter, but the door slammed shut in my face. Screaming, I beat at the door …. and abruptly found myself thrashing about in the sheets. Panting for breath, I immediately looked for Chloe.

She was sound asleep, a tiny smile on her face.

“Oh, God,” I breathed, tears running over my cheeks. The dream had seemed so real to me. I laid back down, but somehow I didn’t think I was going to get very much sleep after that.

When my alarm went off, I felt like I’d been dragged through the mud face-first and then run over by a semi. Groaning, I got out of bed and got dressed, then scooped Chloe up to go to her room to pack her diaper bag with what I’d need for the night for her. She cooed happily, her blue eyes staring up at me. “I’m so glad you’re an easy baby,” I told her, running a hand through my hair.
After I got her packed and changed, I took her into the kitchen to find Malachai already in there cooking breakfast.

“You sleep okay?” he asked, those black eyes slanting over at me.

“No,” I told him. “I dreamed that you, Harry, and Micah were going to sacrifice her in his old office.”

He nodded, turning the bacon over. “Tonight’s going to be Hell itself, Selene,” he murmured. “Be prepared for anything, and remember what I told you about doing what I say do.”

“I will,” I assured him, going to fix a bottle for Chloe.

This time, we rode in his truck to the plant. I’d never been in his truck before, but if he thought that was what we should do I wasn’t arguing.

Saturdays at the plant were long and boring. There weren’t any trucks coming in or going out, and the administration building was closed. It was just the supervisors and employees that worked in the plant itself, other than me and Chloe – and now Malachai too.

Huey, Rooster, and John all three came out to the guard house on their first break, and all three men looked more serious than I’d ever seen them look.

“We brought you something,” Rooster said, and set something on the counter.

It was a small glass jar full of what looked like water.

“Good call,” Malachai told Rooster, eyeing the jar.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Holy water, sweetheart,” Huey answered. “Real holy water.”

“What do I do with it, though?” I asked, looking at all four of them.

“Exactly what I say do,” Malachai expressed. “Stick that in your side pocket, Selene. You’ll need to have easy access to it, if this night goes the way I think it might.”

“We’ll be watching from the plant,” John said. “If we see that shiny car of his, we’ll be on our way out here. I know you can handle him, Malachai, but we’d make for a good distraction.”

“Too late,” I breathed, watching a silver car glide up the drive to the employee parking lot. “He’s here.”

All of us watched it circle the parking lot like a shark that scented blood. Malachai had killed the lights in the guard house, making it harder for him to see in and easier for us to see out.

“Selene, do you have a key to the mailbox room there?” Malachai asked softly.

“Yes, why?” I said.

“Take Chloe in there. Take Chloe in there, wrap her up warm with a blanket, and dab a little of that water on her forehead. I want you two to sit back behind that door out of sight.”

I immediately did what he told me to, taking Chloe out of her play pen and putting her in her carrier to go unlock the door and go inside. Locking it tight behind me, I set her down on the floor out of sight of the window that was around the corner and tucked her blankets around her warmly. Then I took the bottle of holy water out of my side pocked and gently dabbed some of it on her forehead. She grinned at me, and I put the lid back on and put it back in my pocket to sit right beside her. “Okay, honey, we need to be very quiet,” I murmured. “The bad man is back, and I don’t want him getting you.”

When the door whooshed open, and I heard the tap of his cane, I closed my eyes and prayed that he wouldn’t know we were in there. I prayed that Malachai would beat him, send him to Hell, whatever. And I prayed that all of us in that guard house minus that old son of a bitch made it out alive and unscathed.

“Where’s the girl, boy?”

I held my breath, tears welling out of fear. Harry scared the living daylights out of me. I could almost smell how evil that man was.

“It’s just us tonight, Harry,” Malachai drawled.

“You lie.”

I’d never heard such rage in someone’s voice, but I was hearing it now.

“Do you see her, Harry?” I heard John ask.

“You tell me where she is, Malachai Brooks, or I swear I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“You and what army, Harry Thomas Woods?” Malachai countered, and something in his voice had gone dark. “Do you really think I’m still that same God-fearing coward I was?” A pause. “You get a good look, old man. You get a real good look, and then you tell me.”

A loud, booming laugh echoed through the guard house then, and my blood turned to ice. Something black and viscous began tracing its way down the walls, and quietly I moved Chloe and myself away from them. “Please don’t let him find us,” I breathed, trembling.

Shadows began to move in the backside of the mailroom. Shadows with long, clawed fingers and what looked like rows of horns on their heads. They swarmed around us, their long fingers grasping for Chloe.

A roar rattled the doors and windows, and suddenly the mailroom door blasted open. I threw my body over Chloe to shield her from the flying debris and felt something stab me deep. I admit that it was tempting to grab Chloe and run, but I hadn’t driven my car and Harry would just follow me I knew.

Something growled outside the door in a tone that told me it meant me and Chloe harm, and I found myself hugging her carrier to me tightly to keep her shielded from whatever it was. There was another growl, and then needle-sharp teeth bit deep into my back to try to dislodge me from my daughter. I cried out from the pain, but didn’t release my death grip on her carrier.

A new growl was heard behind me, followed by a deep hiss like from a jungle cat. I wanted to turn and look, but keeping Chloe shielded took priority. The new growl sounded again, followed by a pained cry and the teeth in my back let go abruptly.

Then all Hell broke loose in the guard house.

I had two creatures fighting tooth and nail behind me, just at the door out of the mailroom, so I didn’t dare move an inch from my position. Beyond them, I could hear that evil, booming laugh combined with colored light that flashed like a strobe. The shadow creatures came again, trying to pull me away from my daughter, but I fought against them. I could hear screaming and yelling, but who it was I couldn’t decipher. I could feel blood running down my back and sides, down my arms from where those hellish things clawed me trying to make me let go of Chloe’s carrier.

There was a sudden boom, like a bomb going off, that rocked the whole building and sent plaster raining down from the ceiling … then, dead silence.

I remained motionless, unsure of what had just happened. Chloe remained quiet beneath me, but I could feel her little hands playing with my hair and shirt buttons. She was still alive, and I still had her as of right then.

“Selene?”

The voice sounded like John, but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a trap, so I didn’t respond.

And they did. When day shift showed up, those three were standing in the guard house with me, and they explained to my relief what had happened overnight. It wasn’t the truth, no, but they made it believable enough that my relief just nodded and told me I was a lucky woman.

I put Chloe in Malachai’s truck and drove us home. It was strange, driving that big, black truck and knowing I’d never see its owner again. He’d saved us, though. My daughter would see her first birthday, and every one after that thanks to him.

Some of you may remember this piece from last year, I think. Someone on the OOC challenged me to write it, but I don't remember who it was now. No, this is definitely not my best attempt I admit. It's corny. But hey, it's something. ~ Jade

I’ve worked for Grey County Sheriff’s Office for a good, long while now. Better than twenty years. And I’ve seen a lot of bizarre things in that time, but the one thing that stands out over all the others is the call I took back six years ago ...

Red looked up when I walked in Sunday night, grinning. “Last night,” she said.

“God, I feel it too,” I replied, propping on the edge of her desk. “This weekend has sucked, and that’s being nice.”

“I hear you,” she muttered. “Hell, I had to haul Aerik’s stupid ass out of the lower part of the ore mines today.”

I couldn’t help the laugh. “Yeah, I did notice his vehicle was a bit ... dirtier than usual.”

“How many times has he been told now not to try to drive through it?” she asked, frowning.

“What’s this I hear about Flaherty hitting a dead cow?” she questioned, her lips twitching in an attempt not to laugh.

I groaned. “He got a call for a dead animal in roadway over on Greendale,” I began explaining. “You’ve seen how the jackass drives. Anyhow, he rounded that last curve doing about sixty, and Bessie was right fucking there. Ran his goddamned vehicle up on top of her. Dumbass.”

Red lost it, holding her sides as she cackled.

I laughed with her, I admit. Flaherty just … wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box.

“Do I even want to know what the two of you are laughing about?” Raithe asked, coming into booking.

“Flaherty’s little situation Friday night,” I explained.

Raithe rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Maybe I should put him and Aerik on a shift together. They could be Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.”

“If you do, don’t you dare stick those two on my shift or hers,” Red warned him.

He laughed. “I know better, Ambrose!”

Red sobered then. “Raven, we had a call today that we don’t know what to make of. Raithe and I both went to the caller’s residence, but there wasn’t anything to go on to pursue the matter.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Raithe sighed. “Lady claims a big black unicorn ran into her backyard and ate her child,” he said.

“A what?” I echoed, unsure I’d heard him correctly.

“She swears up and down it was a fucking black unicorn … but I’ve never seen one and I’ve been here forever,” he repeated. “Yeah, we’ve got unusual wildlife here, but … unicorns?”

“Was there anything at all?” I asked.

“Little blood here and there, but absolutely nothing beyond that.” Red paused. “You ask me, the lady came unhinged and murdered her own kid. She wasn’t acting right, not at all.”

“Well, shit,” I swore. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“She’s at the hospital – we decided it was in our best interest to haul her over there and get her checked out fully, know what I mean?” Raithe told me.

I nodded. “Yeah, I know, Raithe. Hopefully, my last night will be quiet.”

“Famous last words, Wintermoon,” he teased, walking off.

Day shift left at seven, and we took over on the night shift. I finished up my paperwork around eight and decided to ride around the county a little. As the lieutenant, I was supposed to stay at the department, but I hated that shit. Ambrose and I were the odd ones out – neither of us could stand just sitting around for hours at a time. We rode the roads as much as our shift did, and we took calls, unlike the other two shifts.

I had just turned onto Pinewood and was headed for the bridge when something big and black ran across the road in front of me, making me hit the brakes hard. “The fuck was that?” I muttered, looking into the woods where it had gone.

Then another one burst from the woods on the right side, stopping dead in my headlights to stare at me before gracefully leaping off into the woods.

I blinked, sure that I was hallucinating. There was no fucking way I had just seen a black unicorn standing in front of my patrol vehicle. It just wasn’t possible. Like Raithe had said, sure, we had unusual wildlife, but never unicorns. Not even once. “Where the hell did they come from?” I wondered, sitting there staring into the woods. There was no way I could track them – not by car anyhow.

Well, maybe a unicorn had eaten someone’s kid. But why would they do it?

Something was not adding up here.

I continued down Pinewood until I hit Route Twelve, and then I turned my happy ass around to head back the way I’d come.

“Zero-thirteen?”

“Go ahead,” I called back.

“Got a situation on Cliffview – caller states … you’re not going to believe this, Lieutenant. Caller states there is an angry mob of unicorns in her backyard. Says they’ve destroyed her children's’ playset and are trying to force their way into her house.”

“Son of a bitch!” I swore. “What the fucking hell is going on in this damned county?”

“Ten-four,” I called, and hung a right on Rosedale to go down Seven until I hit Cliffview.

My cell rang then, and one-handed I answered. “Yeah?”

“Ambrose, Kavanaugh, and I are on our way, Raven,” Raithe told me gruffly. “Don’t you get out of that car until we get there, you hear me?”

“Roger, sheriff, I hear you,” I replied, ending the call.

The caller’s driveway went around the backside of her house, and as I rounded the corner I could see all hell had broken loose.
Yes, there really was a large gathering of solid-black unicorns, and they were battering her house repeatedly. The cedar siding was laying on the ground where they’d knocked it loose, and I could see wood chips and splinters flying with every kick.

The owner of the house came running around from the front door, tears streaming over her cheeks. “Do something!” she screamed at me. “They’re destroying my house!”

“I am waiting on backup, now please go back inside,” I told her firmly.

“Mommy, horsies!”

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as her three-year-old daughter darted past her to run to the “horsies” in the backyard.

Raithe’s warning going out the window, I threw myself out of my patrol vehicle to lunge after the child … but I was too slow.

The leader of the group, a massive black stallion, charged the child with his head low to the ground. That nearly three foot long spiraled ebony horn speared her through the neck, and the stallion lifted her up with it to take her to the group.

Horrified, I watched as the group tore her apart and ate her.

“No!”

The woman’s anguished scream brought me back to myself, and neatly I spun to clothesline her to the ground. She fought me like a lioness, but I managed to keep her down.

Multiple headlights washed over us then, and I breathed a sigh of relief. With any luck at all, Raithe would know what the fuck to do about this.

“Oh, Jesus,” the sheriff muttered, watching the herd finish off the child.

“Where the fuck did they come from, Stormwinter?” I demanded, half-tempted to let her go take her chances with the herd. Hell, I was ready to help her at that point. Kid-eating unicorns were not welcome, not in my fucking county.

“I wish I goddamned knew,” he retorted, pulling his ponytail.

“Raven, I know you hate doing this, but you gotta call someone in for this shit,” Red told me. “We can’t do anything with them other than shoot them, and I don’t know if that will work.”

“Well, let’s just fucking find out,” I growled, pulled out my 1911, and fired center mass on that big stud.

He bellowed in rage, nostrils red-rimmed and eyes beginning to glow sulfuric yellow, but he didn’t go down.

I put the next shot right through his fucking eye, and he still didn’t drop. What he did do was spin around on me, at which point I unloaded the magazine into him. When that magazine was empty, I dropped it out and neatly slammed the next one in to pull the slide and start firing again.

It took three magazines to drop the bastard, but he didn’t get up again.

“Still think shooting them won’t work?” I asked, going to pop the trunk and pull out the AR. “Come on, you motherfuckers! Come on and eat some fucking lead, you goddamned murdering pieces of shit!”

The homeowner had gotten up by then and had gone into the house to come out with a shotgun. “Works for me,” she muttered and took her place at my side to start trying to take down the remaining five.

Aerik, Red, and Raithe finally joined us, and between the five of us – and the gods only knew how many rounds – we managed to take them all down.

But that left another problem. What the hell did we do with the bodies?

“Call Jay, have him come out here with a rollback,” I suggested.

Raithe made the call, and in the meantime, the rest of us walked around the dead unicorns ensuring they were really dead. When the homeowner walked up to that big stud with a hacksaw, I just nodded at her. She had a right to want to take that horn – he’d killed her little girl.

Something strange happened when she sawed that horn off.

The body shimmered and then vanished in a wisp of black smoke. The horn remained, but the body disappeared.

“Huh,” I murmured. “Got more saws?”

She had two more, so Red and I went to work sawing the horns off the remaining herd. Raithe called Jay to cancel the rollback since he wouldn’t be needed after all and took the horns to wrap up in a bundle and stow in his car.

“I’m gonna have my buddy run some tests on these horns, see if we can’t figure out where they came from maybe,” he told us, hopping into his car to leave.

I turned to the homeowner, unsure of what to say to her. I mean, what did you say to someone who’d lost their child like that?

She gave me a tearful smile, horn in hand. “You didn’t know that would happen, Lieutenant,” she told me, briefly touching my arm. “From now on, I’ll stay in the house until you get things handled.”

“Still, I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough,” I expressed.

“You win some, you lose some,” she countered, going inside the house.

I uttered a heavy sigh, turning to Aerik and Red. “From now on, I am carrying every fucking piece of weaponry I own,” I said.

“Well, let’s fucking hope this shit never happens again,” Aerik told me. “Why didn’t you want to ask for help from your Patron?”

“Pride,” I admitted. “If I hadn’t been able to drop that bastard, I’d have called him in. But I needed to see if I could solve this on my own, without his help.”

He nodded. “I can appreciate that.”

Red chuckled then, shaking her head. “Well, let’s get out of here,” she expressed. “Raven, I hope the rest of your night is quiet after this shit.” She shook her head again. “Unicorns. Why did it have to be flesh-eating goddamned unicorns?”

The title actually came from a Ministry song, but it's fitting for this piece. This was written last year before I had decided whether I would ever share what happened from Belial's perspective. I cannot speak for the minds of deities, but I can say that this is accurate as far as Lucifer is concerned. I have spoken to too many women in the LHP community that have been used by him and then discarded, and some are still being hunted to this day. Beware, is all that I will tell you. ~ Jade

“Why the fuck am I here?”

Azazel studied the defiant god before him for a moment, taking the time to choose his response. Neatly folding his arms across his chest, the god of war walked in a slow circle around Lucifer. “I think you well know why you’re here,” he expressed. “So why don’t you tell us, Lucifer?”

Lucifer cast a baleful look around the chamber, a sneer forming on his lips. “I think you’re all jealous of the attention I get,” he spat. “All those stupid, fawning human women chasing after me instead of any of you. Well, that’s your problem and not mine.”

“If you think they’re so stupid, why do you even fool with them?” Asmodeus asked, his eyes narrowing slightly in irritation.

Lucifer uttered a short laugh. “Because most of them will do anything to gain my attention,” he replied, something ugly lurking behind his words. “The lengths some will go to for the sake of making sure I’m pleased with them would make even a succubus blush.”

“They are nothing but whores to you, Lucifer. You don’t give a shit about them. But then, you’ve never given a shit about anyone, now have you?”

Azazel, Asmodeus, Samael, Satan, Leviathan, Stolas, and Amducius all turned to look at Lilith as she strode into the chamber. Her eyes flashed fire – a sign they knew meant she was beyond just irritated. Lilith was furious, and it didn’t bode well for Lucifer.

“And what do you care?” Lucifer snapped.

Lilith drew herself up to full height and stepped up to Lucifer. “What do I care?” she echoed. “Those stupid, fawning human women, as you put it, are under my care as well you insensitive, fucking bastard, and I am the one who is trying to repair the damage you’re leaving behind when you’re through with them!”

The chamber went dead-silent as Belial walked in, his eyes fixed on Lucifer. There was controlled violence in the way he moved, and tendrils of his hair had transformed into tiny red serpents that hissed and snapped at the air. The hem of his long coat threw sparks with every step he took. Lilith may well have been furious, but Belial – Belial was livid.

Lucifer swallowed hard, not taking his eyes off Belial as the Horned God crossed the room without making a sound. He could feel Belial’s energy biting at him, even at that distance. This was not going as planned for him, not at all. He’d been sure when the others called him in that Belial would prove to be just as reclusive as ever and not show up, and he was clearly wrong.

“Belial asked you a question, Lucifer,” Stolas pointed out softly. “I think I would answer, were I you.”

When Lucifer still didn’t speak, a low, dangerous growl echoed through the chamber. At first, everyone thought it was coming from Leviathan, but then they realized Leviathan was still looking on calmly. A look at Belial showed that he had made the sound – those amber eyes had flames burning in them, and the serpents in his hair were all staring at Lucifer in pure malice.

“Maybe you need some incentive to speak,” Belial snarled. Instantly, the bone staff manifested in his hand, and a split second later his entire appearance shifted. Gone was the visage of the Horned God, and in his place stood someone few of them had seen before. He wore decayed robes, and his flesh was rotting off. The hair was stringy and lank, covered in the fluids that dripped from his head. Those eyes were glazed, milky, but still riveted on Lucifer. He advanced on the god, not stopping until he was close enough to feel Lucifer’s breath on him. Then he leaned down into his face and growled at him again, exerting his energy just enough that Lucifer could both see and smell the rot clearly.

Lucifer hadn’t been faced with Belial’s death aspect before. He had heard about it, sure, but he’d never actually seen it. He had to admit, it was … well, horrifying was a good word. The stench was overpowering. Gagging, he tried to back away, but Belial pressed closer. Still, he kept backing up until he hit the wall, and then Belial pressed right up against him so that he could feel the rotting flesh clearly. He started to dart left, but Belial had anticipated his move and put both hands to either side of him. He was trapped with an enraged death god on top of him. “Okay, I’ll tell them just … get off me!”

Belial leaned down into his face one more time, teeth bared. “Take a good look, Lucifer, and know that if you lie about anything, what you’re seeing now will seem like a wet dream compared to what you will see,” he hissed.

Swallowing back the bile in his throat, Lucifer nodded his assent. He watched as Belial started to withdraw – but then the god stopped and spat in his face. It was just too much. He lost the contents of his stomach right there.

Belial grinned at her, moving back and shifting back into the guise of the Horned God.

“I have had enough, I think,” Satan said suddenly, leveling a look at Lucifer. “Stop with the dramatics and tell us what you did, Lucifer. Now.”

Coughing weakly and wiping his mouth, Lucifer braced against the wall behind him with his eyes shut. “I lured her away from Belial before she had a chance to really get to know him,” he began without precedence, knowing the quicker he got it over with, the better off he might be. Might – but that was doubtful. “I seduced her. Made her fall in love with me instead. Then I – I left her.”

“You lie!” Belial yelled, advancing on him again. “Tell them the fucking truth, you murdering goddamned bastard! Tell them or so help me I will fucking end you right here, right now!”

“Okay, okay!” Lucifer knew he was in trouble, but there was no way out of it now. He’d been able to trick them all here and there with little things – or to him, they were little things – but those days were clearly over now. Briefly, he wondered what they would do to him. “I raped her, tortured her, and left her to die.”

Now Leviathan growled, and the sound shook the whole chamber.

“It wasn’t enough that you had so fucking many women eager to be your concubine, your whore,” Belial expressed tightly, his face contorting with the effort to contain the pure, mindless rage. “No, you had to go after mine as well! And all because I cautioned you against using them in that way!”

For a moment, no one knew what to say. Even though they were all aware that Lucifer didn’t treat his initiates – the women, rather – that well, none of them had expected to hear he’d been that cruel.

A single tear spilled over Lilith’s cheek as she stared at Lucifer. “Hear me, you bastard, and know that I keep my word,” she began, her voice belying the hurt she felt at what he’d done. “Every woman who seeks my aid I am going to take under my full protection, and if you ever try to hurt another I will remove your ability to lie with them.”

“There is no need, Lilith,” Satan stated. “I think it’s time that the mortal world found out what sort of god he really is. After all, look how many of them turn to us now for answers, and friendship, and guidance. I think the best recourse for this is to make sure that we tell them who he really is.”

“So that’s your answer to this, huh?” Belial asked, and snorted. “You just don’t get it, do you? No, none of you truly understand what the problem is here. He’s fooled all of you, and you just fucking let him do it. And you all wonder why I’ve become such a reclusive asshole, why I don’t quite trust any of you now. Well, this is why.”

“What would you have us do, Belial?” Samael asked.

Belial regarded Samael for a moment. “I would have you do unto him everything he has done to those poor, misguided souls who sought solace from him,” he finally said. “I would have you make him endure every last cruelty he’s dealt out. Maybe then he might understand. I doubt it, myself, but at least it would be a fucking start.”

“We can’t do that, Belial,” Satan told him.

“Then don’t fucking call on me the next time he does something wrong!” Belial spat and stalked out of the chamber, slamming the door behind him.

Lilith, Stolas, and Leviathan exchanged looks with one another, and quietly left the chamber as well to go after him.

“Belial,” Lilith called, catching sight of him as he rounded the corner ahead.

Belial stopped, turning to glare at them. “What? Come after me to tell me what a fucking asshole you think I am, have you?”

“No,” Stolas said. “We came after you because you’re right. We came after you to tell you that at least you have the three of us on your side. We’ll do everything in our power to be sure he never touches another woman under our protection – or yours, my old friend. That’s a promise.”

Belial calmed slightly, nodding. “It’s a start, then. Maybe one day the others will wake the fuck up and realize what’s going on.”

“Doubtful, but we’ll see,” Lilith expressed. “Come. Let’s be off from here. We have work to do.”

After Chloe was born, I returned to work at the steel plant. She went with me to work every night – I’d gotten the okay from the plant admin and my security company as well. I was glad, because I had no babysitter and not quiet enough extra to afford the $300 a month for one. Yes, Fred had told me him and his wife would watch her for me, but not all night long every single night I worked.

Plus, I really didn’t trust strangers with my baby girl.

Having her there with me was a boon, actually. Most of the regular truckers who came through had kids of their own, but there were a few stragglers who didn’t. A few of them had given me a hard time in the past, but with a newborn in a bassinet, it cut way back on heated discussions.

Chloe was an easy baby. She was awake when I was awake, went down easy for naps, and slept through the day. She wasn’t fussy, and seemed fascinated by everything and everyone.

I loved her fiercely.

So did all the men who worked in the plant.

“Selene, she’s going to be a beauty like her mama,” John teased me one night when he was taking his break in the guard house with me. Chloe cooed and gurgled at him, her blue eyes tracking his face, as he stroked her wispy blonde hair and tucked her blanket in around her.

I blushed. “Oh, I don’t know, John,” I said. “I’m hoping she looks like Micah.”

He met my eyes then, a bittersweet smile appearing. “Girl, one day you’ll meet someone else. Someone who needs you and Chloe. I know the death of your husband hit you hard, but I got a feeling down the road some guy’s going to come along and knock your socks off.” Seeing the way my eyes glazed over, he winked. “Maybe I’ll leave my wife and take the two of you and run off somewhere.”

It made me laugh, and pulled me out of those memories. “Beth would beat you half to death for that,” I said.

“Ayuh, she sure would,” he conceded, grinning.

My eyes went to the road leading out, and I remembered what I’d seen a few months ago. “John, I want to ask you something, but I’m afraid you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Saw something, did you?” he asked, getting my full attention. He nodded. “This old plant, she’s seen a lot in her fifty years. Fights, bad accidents, a few deaths even. I imagine you just might see someone every once in a while.”

“This wasn’t human,” I blurted out.

Now I had his full attention. “What did you see?”

I sighed, looking out to the road again. “It happened around four in the morning. I was sitting here reading, listening to an instrumental playlist, and motion from the admin parking lot caught my eye. I looked up, and John, I thought it was someone’s pony got loose at first.” Taking a breath, and trying not to shiver with the memory of the thing, I pressed on. “The fur was moth-eaten, and it didn’t have hooves. It had paws. It had a furry tail instead of a horse tail. It was walking really slow, like it hurt to move. When it reached the road, and turned, well it’s a wonder I didn’t go into labor from the fright. It didn’t have a head, John, or a neck even. It was just a torso with legs and a tail.”

“That phone of yours got a camera?” he asked.

I mock-slapped myself in the head. “I should have thought to get a photo, but it scared the daylights out of me.”

“If you see it again, get a photo and call me,” he said.

I gave my word, and he wandered back to the plant to go back to work.

Chloe drifted off for a nap around midnight, and I pulled out a book to read. Until around four in the morning, there would be no one in the guard house except for plant employees, and they didn’t care if I read. Relaxing in my chair with one foot tucked under me and the other one in front of it on the seat, I turned my playlist on low volume and settled in.

I won’t lie and say my eyes didn’t occasionally flick up toward the admin parking lot, but the creature wasn’t out there.

Half an hour into my book, I needed to use the restroom. Since Chloe was still snoozing, I just locked the window and the doors and went to take care of business. No one could get in, so she was perfectly safe.

Or, at least I thought she was.

I had just started washing my hands when Chloe started this ungodly screaming that I’d never heard out of my daughter before. I snatched the door open and was half-way to her bassinet when my eyes focused on what was standing over her.

From the back, it looked like a man wearing a suit. But how had he gotten in, and what did he want with my baby?

“Get away from her!” I yelled, reaching in my pocket for my cell to call 911.

He rose stiffly, turned, and I almost dropped my phone.

He was wearing my dead husband’s face, but it was decayed.

I screamed, and probably would have gone on screaming if Huey hadn’t heard me on his way to his truck.

“Open the damned door, Selene!” he yelled, his eyes fixed on that … thing standing over Chloe.
Not taking my eyes off it, I side-stepped to the door and twisted the lock.

Huey was in the door with his gun out and pointed at it before I knew what was going on. “You son of a bitch, you get the hell on out of here and stay out!” he ordered, the gun trained on it. “You hear me, you demon? You get the hell away from that baby, and don’t you come back here!”

It gave Huey this twisted smile, and vanished.

I shoved past him to snatch Chloe out of her bassinet, tears streaming over my cheeks and sobs racking me. “What was that?” I half-yelled, pacing with her in my arms, still crying. “What the hell was that?”

Huey put the gun away a bit shakily, and leaned on the counter to catch his breath. “Gal, I wish I knew,” he answered, looking shell-shocked. “I heard Chloe wailing half-way here, and then you started screaming, and I knew something was wrong. Don’t neither of you scream like that.” He paused. “God damn, I need a drink.”

“You and me both,” I agreed, stroking Chloe’s back and head as I walked her. “You know John, right?”

“Yankee John?” he asked. “Yeah, I know him. Why?”

“When you go back in, tell him what you saw out here,” I said. “Maybe he might know what I’m dealing with out here.”

“I’ll tell him, gal,” Huey said. “I’ll tell Rooster, too. He’s been here since this damn plant started – his folks are the backwoods type. I reckon he might just know something himself.” He looked at Chloe, who was calming down now. “Keep her by your side, until we find out what the hell this is, Selene.”

With the servitor showing up at the plant again to try to take Chloe and the fact that Micah’s great uncle wanted to user her as a sacrifice I gave Malachai the spare room to stay in until he took care of Harry Thomas Woods.

I didn’t know how to feel about having a man I barely knew in my house, but the fear of losing Chloe outweighed my misgivings.

Tuesday when I went in for my shift, Malachai rode with me. If anyone asked about his presence, I could pass it off as having a stalker and his being an old friend of Michah’s who was back in town. Or at least I hoped that I could. Malachai looked like the sort of man you met in a back alley after dark.

Chloe loved him though. Her eyes would light up when she saw him, and her little pudgy hands would reach for him.

I openly admit that the first time he laid her down on the counter to change her diaper, I had to repress myself from shooing him away so that I could do it.

I also openly admit the annoyance at how good she was for him. Chloe was a wiggle worm when it came to diaper changes, but not for Malachai apparently.

“Selene, I need to ask you something a little personal,” he said, looking up from his laptop with that black brow furrowed. “I’ll apologize for the asking, but it’s important. Do you remember when she was conceived, and if you do, do you remember if anything was different that night?”

My face flamed at his question, and I’m sure my indignation showed.

“As I said, I’m sorry, but this is important,” he said again.

I thought for a time, mentally doing the math from the day she was born and going back nine months from then. “It would have been in September,” I murmured aloud, still thinking back to see if any particular night stood out to me.

“Hey, baby, why don’t you and I go get a bath?” Micah asked, a roguish smile on his lips. “I picked up some lotion I think you’re gonna like, and I’ve got a bottle of your favorite wine.”

“September twenty-first,” I said, my eyes vacant as I recounted the details. “I’d been working in the yard – he’d gone into town for something. He suggested a bath – as hot and dirty as I was, I agreed. He’d bought me new body lotion – it was in a dark-red glass jar, and it smelled absolutely intoxicating. It warmed when he rubbed it into my skin – I remember feeling hyper-sensitive to touch, and wanting him to touch me more than was normal. It was like I just could not get enough of him.”

I didn’t realize I was in tears until Malachai handed me tissues.

“I’m sorry to make you go through those memories, angel,” he murmured, looking like he’d been kicked. “I know how painful they are. I’ve got a few of my own.”

“How old are you, Malachai?” I heard myself ask.

He uttered a short laugh. “Thirty-seven,” he replied. “I feel far older, though.”

John walked into the guard house then, and stopped dead. “Malachai?” he queried, looking confused.

“Live in the flesh, old man,” Malachai teased. “Let me guess: you thought I was dead.”

“Good guess,” John said, smiling some now. His eyes went to me and Chloe. “Tell me you’re looking after them.”

“Son of a bitch,” John swore, leaning on the counter. “I knew things were bad, but I had no idea he’d be involved.”

“Wait, you knew him?” I asked John, puzzled.

John nodded, running a hand through curly reddish hair. “Met him a few years ago at a company party. He was a complete jackass – bragging about how he’d built this plant with his own two hands. Bullshit he did. He just designed it – it was men like me and Rooster who built this son of a bitch.”

“Good old Harry,” Malachai muttered, shaking his head. “The poor bastards who didn’t bow down to his greatness became part of that building permanently. That or … they were sacrificed.”

At midnight, I saw a car pull into the lot. It was a sleek, silver thing – the make or model I had no idea. It circled a few times before pulling into a parking spot just out of sight, and I wrote it off as someone’s wife bringing them dinner. Chloe was in her playpen watching the mobile go round, and Malachai had stepped into the restroom.

The door opened, and an old man wearing a black hat and using a cane with a wolf’s head in gold walked in. Icy blue eyes locked on me, and a smile curved his thin mouth. “Hello, Selene.”

My blood turned to ice in my veins, and my free hand reached to wrap around the baseball bat under the counter beside me. “Harry Woods, I presume?” I asked, proud that the terror I felt didn’t come through in my voice.

“Oh, now, just call me Harry, dear,” he oozed, walking up to the counter. Those unsettling, dead eyes went to Chloe, who had frozen in her playpen and was staring at him with wide eyes. “My great-great niece. She’s exquisite.”

I wanted to vomit at those words. As he turned to move down the counter, to come behind it to where Chloe was, a voice like the distant rumble of thunder stopped him dead.

“You take one step towards her, Harry, and you won’t like what happens next.”

The look of pure malevolence on that old man’s face stopped my heart, and all I could think was I needed to get Chloe and get the hell out of there. The hell with the job, I’d find something else, but we weren’t safe there anymore.

While Harry’s back was turned, I darted over to Chloe and snatched her up out of her playpen to hold her tightly against me. I was shaking all over, and tears streamed over my cheeks, but he wasn’t touching my daughter even if it meant my own death.

Harry narrowed his eyes at Malachai, and his servitor appeared behind Malachai at once.

I opened my mouth to scream a warning, and before I could Malachai did something I couldn’t logically explain.

A long, black blade just appeared in his hand, and he rammed it backwards into the servitor’s chest without taking his eyes off Harry. The servitor screamed, smoked, and then vanished, leaving Malachai and Harry facing off. “I think you and I have done this before, Harry,” Malachai expressed.

Harry growled something unintelligible, throwing his hands out to the sides …

Malachai murmured something softly and waved his left hand at Harry, preventing him from completing the spell. “You’re not getting either one of them, Harry, and that’s a promise.”

Malachai just turned to watch him go, one black eyebrow raised. When the silver car left the lot at speed, he turned to me and Chloe. “Other than being scared shitless, are you two okay?”

I nodded, still bouncing her on my hip and swiping tears away. “I just thought he looked evil in the photo – that photo doesn’t do justice to how evil that man is,” I said, my voice quavering.

Malachai rounded the counter and drew me and Chloe both up against him warmly. He didn’t say anything. He just held us like that for a time.

By the time he drew away, I was calm again. Chloe gave him her trademark smile, her little arms reaching out, and I let her go to him easily. Part of me wondered how she would take it when the issue of Harry was resolved and he left us. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. “What are you, Malachai?” I asked bluntly.

“I’m the good guy, Selene,” he replied without batting an eye. “I’m what evil fears the most.”

His answer left a lot to be desired, but I let it go. He’d kept Harry from touching Chloe, and that was all that mattered.

I was pretty shaken up by the thing standing over my daughter, so no, she didn’t leave my sight the next several weeks.

Huey, John, and Rooster were the only ones besides me who knew what happened that night, and I really hoped I could keep it that way.

On my long weekend off, I started thinking about the things I’d seen at the plant. I wondered what I might find at the local library, so I loaded up Chloe and off we went. I could have just put her in the stroller and walked, but the day was so hot and muggy I didn’t want to.

I knew the library well – it had always been my favorite place to go, and I was an avid reader. I enjoyed learning new things, including history. Going through the doors, I headed back to the research section and began scanning through the dates.

“Ma’am, is there something I can help you find?”

I looked up at the smiling, elderly gentleman and thought for a moment. “The steel plant down 70 – what do you know about it?” I asked.

He grinned down at Chloe, who was waving her little arms and gurgling at him happily. “She’s a doll,” he complimented. “Why don’t we go sit down over there, and I’ll tell you what I know about it.”

Agreeably, I picked Chloe’s carrier up and followed him over to the sofa and chairs in the corner by the big windows. Setting her down on the sofa beside me, I offered the man a smile. “I’m Selene, and this is Chloe.”

“Nice to meet you ladies,” he returned, smiling as he settled into a chair. “Just call me Jess. Mind if I ask why the interest in that old plant?”

“I’ve heard things,” I replied, neatly avoiding telling that I worked there and had seen things I couldn’t rationally explain and now I was terrified.

My brow furrowed immediately. “My late husband is his great nephew, why?”

“He was the architect for that plant,” Jess replied, looking deep in thought. “He wasn’t well-liked, I’m afraid. Hotheaded and arrogant, Harry wanted things done exactly, and God help the man who deviated at all from his plans.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling chilled.

“Men went missing from his crew. Just up and disappeared, no trace. Always the ones who argued with him, or tried to alter things.” Jess shook his head. “There were rumors Harry was in league with the devil himself, and that’s how he got the job designing that plant.”

I thought about the creature I’d seen, and then the thing standing over Chloe, and shivered.

I told him about the creature I’d seen before Chloe was born, and then I told him about the thing standing over her in the guard house. I told him about Huey running it off for me, what all he’d yelled at it, and how terrified my baby seemed to be when I finally got her out of her bassinet. “I need this job, Jess, but … I’m terrified to go back in now,” I finally confessed to him, eyes watering.

Jess sat there for a while, mulling something over in his head. “I may know someone who can help you,” he told me. “My youngest nephew. Tell me, Selene, are you religious? What I mean is, do you go to church and consider yourself a Christian?”

“I thought I did, until Micah shot himself,” I replied honestly. “Now, I just don’t know.”

I nodded. “I was coming home to tell him he was going to be a father, and … found him in his office. No note, no warning, no nothing, Jess. I wish I knew why. I wish I had the answer, why my husband killed himself.” I met his eyes. “Why did you ask about my religious beliefs?”

Jess sighed. “Malachai’s a bit … different, Selene,” he began. “I’m the only one in the family that will have anything to do with him. I’ve seen him do things that I can’t explain. Now, don’t get me wrong – I trust that boy, and I’d trust him with my last dollar and my great-grandbaby both. But he ain’t like normal folk.”

“I go back to work Monday night,” I told him. “My shift runs from six to six. He’s welcome to come by and talk to me.”

Jess nodded, getting to his feet as I got to mine. Boldly, he put his hand on my shoulder. “You hang in there,” he murmured. “If I know Malachai, he won’t leave you there alone until he solves this riddle. He’s a night owl himself, so the hours will be perfect for him. Unless of course you aren’t allowed visitors.”

“I can have visitors,” I confirmed. “My company and the admin of the plant don’t care, as long as I do my job and I’m not doing anything illegal.”

Jess assured me that Malachai would be there Monday evening, and we parted ways. I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to do my shopping for the week, and went home to put Chloe down for a nap. While she slept, I did some light cleaning and then settled on the couch with a book.

My eyes involuntarily went down the hallway, to Micah’s office, and I found myself getting up to go inside. All the blood and brain matter had been cleaned up, leaving no physical trace that he’d blown his brains out in the room, but my mind conjured the images up. “Micah, why?” I asked softly, wandering around the room. Going behind his desk, I sat down in the chair and stared at it for a time.

Then I found myself opening drawers and rifling through the contents. I had never gone through Micah’s things, but now that he was gone, I just couldn’t help myself. Old bills, tax records, receipts … it seemed to be mainly household stuff. But as I was closing the top left drawer, I realized the contents sat higher in it than the others. Pulling it all the way out, I removed the contents and discovered it had a false bottom.

Beneath that, I found something that made my blood run cold.

A photo of Micah as a teen, with presumably his great uncle Harry.

They were standing in a room that had black walls, in front of some sort of symbol that I’d never seen before. Candles blazed on the table behind them, surrounding something that I couldn’t quite make out – and wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I set the photo aside, and pulled the slim black book out next. Taking a quiet breath I opened it. It was a journal. Micah’s journal. For a moment I considered closing it and putting it back, and then closing the door to his office for good. Then I remembered that I wanted answers, and started reading.

By the time I was through, I wished I’d never found it.

Jess’ words rang in my ears - “Harry was in league with the devil himself.”

Those weren’t rumors.

Harry was still alive, furthermore.

My terror reached a whole new level, and I fled his office to go check on Chloe, needing to be sure she was okay. She was still sound asleep in her crib, a little smile on her face. Tears spilled over my cheeks, and I sank down beside her crib on the floor.

If I could keep us both alive through the weekend, I prayed that this Malachai could help us.

Monday saw me going in with circles under my eyes and a lot jumpier than I normally was. Chloe was her usual happy self, thankfully, but my nerves were absolutely shot and I hadn’t gotten much sleep. A few of the men remarked on it, but I waved them off with a forced smile.

At eight, a black Dodge truck pulled into the employee’s lot by the guard house and parked.

Before I could get a look at the driver, the phone rang and took my attention away from him. Lost truck driver, needing directions for in the morning. I heard the door open while I was walking him through which interstate, which exit, landmarks, and the like but I didn’t turn around. I could hear Chloe babbling excitedly, so I didn’t think much of it. I could hear a low voice murmuring back to her – well, she clearly liked whomever had come in, so I wasn’t worried. When I finally got the driver straight on where he needed to go, I hung up and turned around. “Sorry about that,” I said, and lost the ability to speak.

The man in my guard house was wearing solid black from head to toe, had several black hoops in both ears, and tattoos up and down both muscular arms. His eyes were as black as the hair he had pulled back in a long ponytail, and he was bronze-skinned. He had been leaned over Chloe, a smile on his lips as he talked to her, but when I turned around he had straightened to look at me.

“My great uncle Jess said you were having some problems out here,” he stated, his voice a low, rumbling purr. “Now that I’m here, that’s the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard him make.”

“You’re – Malachai?” I asked, wincing at my stammered question. “I’m sorry. Of course you are. I’m Selene, and that’s Chloe. And after what I found in my late husband’s office, I’d agree with that statement.”

Those black eyes scanned me. “Your late husband shot himself because he didn’t want to be part of the cult any longer,” Malachai said flatly. “Because he knew his great uncle would want something from him that he didn’t want to give.”

Tears welled and ran heedlessly. “Our daughter,” I breathed.

Malachai got me some tissue from the bathroom and sat me down before I fell over, pulling a chair up beside me. “Jess filled me in, so I would know a little before I showed up here,” he told me. “I can see how afraid you are. I won’t tell you that you shouldn’t be, because that would be a lie. But I’ve danced with Harry Thomas Woods before, Selene. If I have to set up camp in your yard, I won’t let him have your daughter. My word, to you.”

We were sitting in companionable silence at three am, me reading a book and Malachai playing with Chloe, when that thing showed back up.

Malachai just looked at it, one black eyebrow raised and Chloe held tight against him.

“Malachai,” it hissed, making me swallow hard. It sounded so angry …

“Good to see you remember me,” Malachai expressed calmly. “Take a message to your master for me, cull. Tell him if he wants Chloe Woods, he’ll have to go through me to get her.”

Uttering a piercing howl, the thing tried to snatch Chloe out of his arms and I found myself getting to my feet with the baseball bat I kept under the counter.

It swiped at him again, claws extended, and I heard Malachai say something that I couldn’t understand. Howling, it shuddered all over and melted into the floor in a pool of black liquid that vanished into the tiles.

“What the hell was that?” I heard myself exclaim, adrenaline still coursing through me.

“Put the bat away, Selene, and sit down before you faint,” Malachai instructed quietly, still holding Chloe who hadn’t uttered a sound during the entire exchange.

I found myself doing as he told me, and once I was seated the adrenaline left abruptly and left me shaking on the chair. It was then that I realized I had threatened the thing with the bat, and I didn’t like how that made me feel.

“Harry made a pact with something ancient – not a demon, or at least not in the Christian sense of the word,” Malachai explained. “That thing is what they call a servitor – it’s an entity created by emotion and energy, I guess you might say. It’s real enough that it could hurt you or Chloe, so I want you to promise me you won’t do that again.”

“I don’t know what came over me,” I mumbled, shivering. “I just – when it snatched for Chloe”--

“I know, but I gave you my word I wouldn’t let anything happen to either of you,” Malachai pointed out calmly. “I keep my word, Selene.”

Hi everyone! I'm Velvet! Alec, Jade, and Josie asked me to try to help out here, and I would have been here sooner but my daughter was sick. Anyhoo, I thought I would share the little series I wrote here. I wrote it as a form of therapy to deal with my husband's death - he took his life right before I gave birth to our daughter.

The day I found out I was pregnant, my husband shot himself.

I had gone to my doctor’s office to find out the results of my tests – I’d been unnaturally tired and dizzy lately, and didn’t know why. When he told me I was expecting, I was elated. Micah and I had been trying for a year to have a child, so I was excited to get home to break the news to him. He was going to be such a good father …

The house had been silent when I walked in the door. Usually, I’d hear whatever Micah was watching on television or listening to on Pandora, but not that day. There was a funny tang to the air, something I couldn’t identify and didn’t like the smell of. It wasn’t until I walked into his office that I realized what it was.

Blood, brain matter, and clumps of hair and bone spattered the wall behind where he slumped at his desk.

I don’t remember calling 911. I don’t remember the paramedics having to forcefully pull me from Micah’s body, or me screaming at them that he couldn’t be dead, not my Micah, he was going to be a father. I don’t remember my best friend showing up – Luna was a dispatcher with the county, so she’d heard the call.

I only remember the pain. It felt like someone had torn out my soul. Micah had been my entire world.

Now he was gone, and I was alone with a baby on the way.

I was alone, and for the first time since I’d been married I would have to find a job.

If it hadn’t been for that piece of him I was carrying, I would have joined him.

I had a degree in accounting, but the market was flooded. We lived in a small town, and jobs were scarce. Luna suggested that I look at jobs outside my qualifications, so I gave it a shot.

An industrial security firm wound up hiring me, a month after I’d buried Micah. It was a twelve-hour overnight shift at a steel plant on the outside of town. My duties were simple – log the trucks that came in and out, deliver the mail to the administration building, stamp the outbound mail, and the rest of the time I could do as I pleased.

They paid well, the benefits were good, and they knew I was expecting. I would get paid maternity leave, when the time came. They provided the shirts, and I provided my own black pants, belt, and shoes.

I was put with a craggy old man who chain-smoked to be trained for the first week. Thankfully, once I told him I was expecting, he went well outside the guard house to smoke. He was grouchy, cursed like a sailor, and didn’t seem to think I should be working there. “What the hell they were thinking to hire a little chit like you, I don’t have a god damned clue,” he complained. “One of them truckers comes in here sassing you, why, you’ll just cry.”

The first time I went toe-to-toe with a trucker who stood a head taller than me and outweighed me by a hundred pounds, he changed his tune.

Cliff finally deemed I was good to go, and they transferred him to another plant.

I had never really been a night owl, but it grew on me after a time. The wee hours of morning were peaceful, quiet. I learned to appreciate the solitude of the guard house when all of administration had left for the day, and the last trucks had gone as well.

My immediate supervisor was in his seventies, and worked the day shift following me. Every morning that he came in, he’d always ask “how’s my sweetheart?” I’d stay for a little while to talk to him, filling him in on anything that had gone on overnight and discussing my impending motherhood. I think he was more excited about it than I was, telling me him and his wife would watch the little one for me if I ever needed them to.

Gradually I learned the men who worked there, and befriended a few of them. The night shift supervisors, the mechanics, electricians, forklift drivers … they all liked to migrate out to the guard house to sit and talk with me. All of them made sure I understood that if I ever needed anything, just call one of them. I can’t tell you how many came through and told me if I needed to borrow a gun, I’d find it in the door, or under the seat, or in the glove box.

They were good to me, and made me feel like I belonged there.

As time went on, and I began to show, they grew pretty protective of me. Even the truckers softened up – they’d walk in with a good head of steam going, and the second they saw my very pregnant belly, all that mad would just go away. Some of the regulars would bring me little things – rattlers, stuffed animals, teething rings.

My eighth month, when I found out I was having a girl, they went behind my back and bought baby clothes, nappies, bottles, a car seat, and a front-loading carrier.

I bawled when they brought it all in to the guard house.

My daughter would be in good hands when she was born, I knew that then. She had so many foster daddies, it wasn’t funny. Foster grandparents, too.

I was sitting by the CB, my laptop on a rolling desk in front of my chair and an instrumental playlist going, when something caught my attention out in the admin parking lot. It was going on four in the morning, and no one was parked over there except the supervisor for that side of the plant. I looked up from the book I was reading, and froze in my seat.

It was the size of a Shetland pony, and that I was sure of. But it had paws, not hooves, and its fur was moth-eaten looking. It wasn’t walking right, either. It was walking really slowly, like moving hurt. I could only see the hind end, as it was walking directly away from me, but then it turned to go down the road leading out of the plant.

Every hair on my body stood on end when it turned.

There was no head. Not even a neck. It was a torso with legs and a tail.

I blinked, sure that I was imagining things.

It was still there.

My blood ran cold as I realized that this was a real thing I was seeing. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I wet myself. I’d been working there for seven months, and I had never seen anything even remotely like this before. I didn’t even know what it was!

When Fred came in for his shift, I let him know I’d had an accident and he’d have to use one of the other chairs. He smiled and told me those things happened when I was that far along – his wife had wet herself in the middle of the store when she was carrying their son.

But I didn’t tell him what I’d seen. I was positive he’d think I had lost my mind.

I was born in the middle of the worst storm the Appalachian Mountains had ever seen.

A freak winter storm, they called it. It dumped close to three feet of snow on us at once, making the roads treacherous. Daddy says getting Mama to the hospital had been an ordeal he hoped he never had to repeat. He also said Mama told him not to worry, that there would never be another child like me.

I didn’t know what she meant by that, or why Daddy had that look on his face when he told me.

Daddy worked in a coal mine, and he’d be gone before I got up in the morning and wouldn’t come home until after I’d gone to bed. I didn’t see him that much, and when I did, he always looked tired. Daddy worked hard, to make sure we had what we needed.

Mama worked a couple of days a week at the beauty shop in town. She shampooed and set, occasionally doing the odd perm or dye. That was her “spending money”, she said.

My granny watched me when Mama worked. I loved Granny. She made the best pies – even the pie we got from Miz Ruth at the diner wasn’t as good as what my granny made. Granny knew how to knit and crochet, and she knew how to fix up my scrapes and scratches without it hurting. She taught me how to fish at the creek, how to hunt for bugs and which kind was okay to touch, and which berries growing wild were edible. But probably the most important thing she ever taught me was to be kind to everyone I met because you never knew what their situation was.

“Ellie, there’s all kinds of people in this old world. Some are going to be better off than you, and some worse. Always treat everyone with respect, and with kindness, because you don’t know what might be going on in their lives. Your kindness might mean more to them than you’ll ever know.”

I took her words to heart. My granny meant the world to me, and I wasn’t about to disappoint her in any way.

During the summer months, when I was old enough, she would take me with her on her rounds to check on the other old folks in our little community. She’d take them sweaters, boggins, and gloves she’d knit, canned goods, and dried goods. We’d sit and visit with each one of them for an hour, and then we’d go on to the next. Most kids my age would have been bored to tears, but I enjoyed visiting with them as much as Granny. I got to learn what it was like growing up there back in their day.

When I was old enough to have a driving license, Granny let me drive her around in her little car. Her eyes weren’t as good at night now, and we’d had to cut our visits short because of it. I took on a new task then also – I’d chop and haul firewood to make sure they had enough to last until we got back around. It was hard work, sure, but it ensured their lives were a little easier and that was what was important.

One day when we started out, I noticed Granny looked a little distant. “Granny? What’s wrong?” I asked her, easing out the driveway.

She sighed heavily, and at first, I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. “Ellie, one of the stops today … has to be done in secret,” she said. “No one can know we were there, you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, my curiosity getting the better of me. “Who’re we going to see?”

“Child, it’s best that you never know her name,” she told me. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but something’s been bugging me to see about her. I’ll show you where to park, so no one thinks anything of it, and we’ll walk up from there.”

Granny had me park by an orchard, so it would look like we were out picking fruit. We crossed the road into the woods, though, and I followed Granny as she picked her way carefully over to a deer trail. I don’t know how far we walked, but we eventually came into a clearing with a small shack sitting there. The shack didn’t look like it was in good shape, and I couldn’t believe there was anyone living in it, but when Granny went up and knocked at the door, I heard a woman’s scratchy voice ask who was there.

That rickety old door swung open, and I had to bite my lip to keep from making a sound.

She looked to be about my mama’s age, judging by the grey that streaked her wild, dark hair. The dress she wore was stained and heavily mended, hanging on her small frame. When her cold, grey eyes met mine … I can’t explain what I felt. It wasn’t fear. It was something else, something I didn’t have a name for.

Granny motioned for me to step up, and began pulling things out of the pack I toted. “I’ve got the vegetable soup you love so much, and some chow-chow too,” she told the woman, who smiled.

“Mable, if they ever find out you and she has been here,” she said then, her eyes going sad.

“I knew the risk when I started checking on you, and I’ll be damned if I stop now,” Granny told her, and that was the first time I’d ever heard my granny swear. “I’ll take full responsibility if I get us caught.”

After we’d given the woman her supplies, Granny took us back down out of the woods and back to the car. “Let’s go pick us some apples, and I’ll make us a pie,” she suggested.

I had so many questions … questions I wasn’t sure I should ask. I kept my mouth shut, helping Granny pick the biggest, best apples for that pie, and then we went home. She set herself to making pie, and I made myself forget what we’d done today.

That fall, when the cold started to bite, I lost my granny. Her heart, they said. It didn’t matter if it was her heart, or old age, or cancer … death took the person that meant the most to me, leaving me behind to try to pick up the shattered pieces of my heart.

Her funeral was held at the old country church, the one that set just on the edge of the woods. The service was done out in the open, with her casket closed. I confess that I didn’t listen to that old preacher going on about eternity in heaven, or how Jesus loved us all and wouldn’t want us sad. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel very loved by God. A kind and loving God wouldn’t have taken my granny from me, I reckoned, but I said nothing.

When the service was over, something very strange happened.

I saw the woman we’d gone to see that day walk down out of those woods, her eyes on Granny’s casket. Her dress was about as ratty as the one she’d worn the day we were there, but it was a faded, splotchy black. She walked right up to Granny’s casket, and I saw the preacher hand her a biscuit and a wooden cup over the top of it. She ate the biscuit, drank whatever was in that cup, and then turned around and walked back into the woods.

My mama shuddered beside me, and I looked at her in question. She just shook her head, though, indicating this wasn’t a subject she was going to talk about.

I tried Daddy next when they were lowering my granny into the ground. “Daddy, who was that woman?” I murmured.

“Ellie, don’t you concern yourself with the likes of that,” he told me firmly. “She ain’t, and will never be part of polite society. Best you forget about her, baby girl.”

I couldn’t, though.

I was given Granny’s car to drive back and forth to school, and I had told Mama and Daddy I intended to keep checking on the folks Granny always visited. Granny had taught me how to can, and I spent my free time during the week putting up vegetables and soup to make sure I had supplies to take to those folks. On the weekends, I made my rounds to everyone’s house to make sure they had enough wood, canned goods, and dried goods. Anyone that needed gloves or boggins, well, I delivered those too.

We got a winter weather warning in mid-October. The weatherman didn’t know how much snow we’d get, but it was going to be a mess. So, I loaded up Granny’s little car with everything I had, just about, and set off again to make sure her friends had enough to get by for at least two weeks. It could be that long before roads were cleared if things were bad enough. Daddy had offered to go with me, and on that first day, I let him. We got the people with the least amount of firewood that day, and me and him both chopped and hauled to make sure they’d have heat.

But on the second day, I told him thanks, but I’d go by myself. He didn’t know it, but I just had three people to visit. Well, four if you counted her.

I stayed an hour at each house, loading them up with supplies and making sure they were set.

Then I headed for the orchard and that deer trail in the woods. There were plenty of apple trees that had fruit on them, so I wasn’t too worried about anyone thinking I’d broke down. I left a pretty little note, stating I was out in the orchard, and then I packed that bag full of stuff and headed across the road.

She didn’t seem surprised to find me at her door when she asked who was there and I answered. The door swung open, and she sighed. “I’m sorry about your granny, Ellie,” she said. “She was a good woman.”

“I don’t know how to ask this, and I don’t want to sound rude, but what did you do at her funeral?” I asked.

“Come in, child,” she said, and I walked into her shack. The inside was sparse but clean, and I sat my bag on the floor by the chair she indicated that I sit in. “I knew you’d come asking. I knew when I saw you standing there, watching me, that you’d want answers. Mable told me about you, Ellie. She said you wasn’t going to be like other children, not being born with a caul.”

My breath caught in my throat – Daddy hadn’t said nothing about that.

She sighed then, thinking about what she was going to tell me. “When people die, Ellie, their loved ones want to make sure they go to heaven,” she began, her raspy, smoky voice almost hypnotizing. “They don’t want nothing keeping them back. Any misdeeds, any indiscretions need to be lifted, so that they can go on to the pearly gates. So, folks around here set a piece of bread, or a biscuit, on the casket along with a cup of wine. Those misdeeds … their sins … go into that bread and that wine. And then I come along, and eat and drink that bread and that wine, taking their sins into myself to carry.”

I sat back, pondering what she’d just told me. “That’s why everyone avoids you,” I murmured, watching her nod. “But that doesn’t make you a bad person, not to me. Why do they treat you so bad?”

“Oh, Ellie,” she said, smiling now. “I’ve eaten the sins of wife beaters, of child molesters, rapists, and murderers. You see me one way now because I’ve had time to process those sins. But when I first take them inside me, it’s a whole different story. See, I have to relive all those memories, all those bad things these people did. And when I die, unless some brave soul comes along and eats my sins, I won’t see heaven.”

I left her with all the supplies I had left and made sure she had enough wood stocked up before I left her shack. The walk back to the car was spent thinking about what she’d said. Her words didn’t make me feel good, not at all. The things she did for us all … she deserved better than she got.

I did have enough sense to pick a bushel of apples before I went home, just in case someone had come along and seen my note. But the sin-eater’s words weighed heavy on my mind.

“Daddy, why did that woman take that from the preacher across Granny’s casket?” I asked, knowing I was pushing my luck.

But my daddy just sighed, leading me to the den to sit down with me. “I can tell you that much, I guess,” he said. “We wanted to make sure your granny left this earth with nothing troubling her spirit, so the preacher sat that biscuit and a cup of wine on top of her casket. Anything your granny had done in her life that might have given her trouble was taken into that bread and wine. The woman that you saw ate the bread and drank the wine, taking those troubles into herself so that your granny could go to the Lord as pure as the day she was born.”

“What would happen if someone died, and no one put bread or wine on them?” I pushed.

“Oh, lord, honey, that ain’t something to be thinking about,” he replied. “No one around here would let that happen, so don’t worry your pretty little head none about it.”

That night, after Mama and Daddy had gone to bed, I sat up in bed and thought about the sin-eater out there in that shack. “Granny, it ain’t right,” I murmured. “You taught me to be kind to everyone I met and to help them any way that I could. It just ain’t right for her to die with all those sins attached to her like that. Not with everything she’s done for us.”

Well, we got that storm early Monday morning. Old Man Winter came along and dumped two feet of snow on us, shutting down school and most of the businesses. Since no one was going anywhere for at least a day or two, Mama helped me put up more canned supplies while Daddy went out to cut wood.

“Your granny would be so proud of you, Ellie,” Mama told me.

I just smiled at her.

That night, I was jolted out of a deep sleep by someone calling my name.

“Ellie! Come quick, child!”

“Granny?” I mumbled, looking around the room. Not seeing her, I started to just go back to sleep when I realized my granny couldn’t have possibly called me when she was dead – unless something was wrong. Jumping out of bed, I threw on my warmest clothes. Long johns, two layers of socks, thick pants, and a thick sweater went on before my work boots, gloves, heavy coat, and boggin. Slipping out of my room, I held my breath as I made my way to the back door and unlocked it to let myself out into the frigid night air. “Granny, what’s wrong?” I breathed, hoping for a sign, a direction, anything.

The sin-eater’s face flashed into my mind.

But how was I gonna get there? It was close to five miles away – I couldn’t walk there in enough time, I didn’t think.

Daddy’s mule that he used for plowing snorted behind me, and inspiration hit. Making my way into the barn, I found his halter and a long piece of rope. I put that halter on him, tied that rope to both sides for reins, and then prayed to God that this was going to work as I led him over to something I could get on his back from. “We’ve got a special mission, Gus,” I murmured, turning his head to the road. “If you can just get me there in time, I promise you a nice, warm mash when we get home.”

Gus shot off down the driveway with me clinging to his back for dear life, and somehow I got him turned in the right direction.

He didn’t run the whole way, but he ran enough of the way that he got me to her door in about forty minutes’ time. Mules are sure-footed critters, and I was thankful for that once we headed up that deer trail to her shack. I slid off him, loosely tying him to a tree, and then ran to her door to beat on it. “It’s Ellie!” I called.

“Ellie …”

Not thinking twice, I just shoved through the door, finding her lying on her cot burning up with fever and gasping for air. “Oh, no,” I said, trying to find some medicine, or water, or something I could give her. “Why didn’t I think to grab some of Granny’s cold remedy?”

“Ellie, you can’t save me, child,” she managed to get out.

I turned to her, tears streaming over my cheeks. “Granny woke me up,” I told her, watching her nod slowly. “Why did she wake me up if I can’t save you?”

It hit me then. It hit me why she had woken me up, why I was there at that cabin, as the sin-eater lay dying.

“Bread and wine?” I asked solemnly.

“No!” she hissed. “No, I can’t let you do that, Ellie. You’re way too young to take on this burden, child.”

“Granny didn’t wake me up just to come watch you die,” I said plainly. “You can tell me, or I’ll just find it myself.”

“You young fool,” she said, a dry laugh leaving her that turned into a coughing fit. “Everyone in town will ostracize you, even your own family.”

“I know,” I said simply. “Where is it?”

Sighing, she closed her eyes. “Over there, on that small table near the wood stove. God have mercy on you, Ellie James.”

I poured a small cup of wine and took a biscuit from the covered dish. Turning, I walked back to sit at her side, wine and biscuit in hand. “Granny always told me to do the right thing, to show kindness to others. Well, to me, this is the right thing to do. We need a sin-eater, after all.”

She mustered up a weak smile, her hand rising to touch my face. “Mable would be so proud of you,” she breathed and was gone.

I sat that biscuit and wine on her chest. “I take your sins, so that you may go in peace,” I stated, waited thirty seconds, and then ate the biscuit, washing it down with the wine. At first, nothing happened, and I feared I had messed up or not done it quickly enough. But then it felt like a huge hand was squeezing me, making my vision go dim. Gasping, I fell to the floor, as her sins became my own.

I saw the sins of every last person she had taken into herself, in vivid detail.

I saw a father drown his young daughter in the creek, screaming at her to “just goddamned die already.”

I saw a man shoot another man, his head exploding like an overripe melon.

I saw a woman poison her husband, whom she’d caught cheating on her.

I saw all of these things, and so many, horrible more.

But the worst thing I saw came from the sin-eater herself.

I saw her husband beating her bloody, night after night. I saw the women in town sneer at her when she went in for groceries, calling out that she deserved what he did to her. One of them was my own mama. But that wasn’t the worst of it, no. I saw the sin-eater wait until her husband was passed out drunk, and then she slit his throat with a hunting knife. When his buddies from the coal mine showed up the next morning to get him, she was still sitting there holding that bloody knife. The cops came, and I saw them take her to jail, where the judge showed up to make her an offer.

“We lost our last sin-eater ten years ago, Bonnie. You take on that job, and I’ll let you go. If you refuse, well … I can make things really hard for you in here. I can make what Jimbo did to you look like a cake walk.”

Her first job, if one could call it that, was her own husband. She was forced to take on his sins, at his funeral. And that’s when she learned what else he’d done.

Her husband, Jimbo, had followed my mama to her car one evening. He had put his hand over her mouth and dragged her behind the dumpster by the abandoned pharmacy. When he was done, he told her if she ever told anyone, he’d kill her.

I didn’t look like my father.

I looked like Bonnie’s dead husband, Jimbo.

And that was what my mama had meant when she told my daddy that there would never be another child like me.

The only sin that I took from Bonnie, that wasn’t horrible, came from my granny. She had gone to the cabin Jimbo and Bonnie shared, and he’d been there alone. She got out of the car with a shotgun, and told him if he ever came sniffing around her daughter again, she’d blow his goddamned dick off.

I came to myself on the floor of Bonnie’s shack hours later, shaking and crying. Daddy’s mule was hollering outside the door, forcing me to my feet. When I opened the door, Mama was standing there.
“I heard Mama calling me, telling me to get up,” she said, tears running down her face. “Oh, Ellie, baby, what have you done?”

“I did what was right, Mama,” I told her. “Granny woke me up to come here. She knew Bonnie was dying and wanted me to be here.” I paused, recalling the awful thing Jimbo had done to her. “I saw what her husband did to her, and to you, Mama.”

“Oh, Ellie,” Mama said, and pulled me up tight against her while she cried. “Ellie, that is something no child should ever have to see. Oh, God, I wish I could forget.”

“He was a bad man, but you got me out of the deal,” I said, hugging her. “I know I look like him, but … that ain’t my daddy. Daddy is my daddy, Mama.”

Mama had half-run and half-walked the whole way there, so I took her home on Gus. I didn’t figure I’d be able to stay there, now that I’d become the town’s sin-eater, but Mama surprised me.

“Let’s get you in here and get you warmed up,” she said, taking my hand and leading me inside. “No daughter of mine, sin-eater or not, is gonna live in some ramshackle shack in the middle of nowhere. We can put you a nice little cabin out back in the woods when you’re ready.”

Yeah, a little something from me. I wanted to show you the real Belial, and got the idea for this from "Right Left Wrong" by Three Days Grace. And the Nik in this story really is my ex ... and he really did lie about everything and fake his death and threaten to have me murdered (not in that order of course).

I needed to go for a hike.

It didn’t matter that it was pouring rain and cold as hell, I needed to get lost in the woods. It had been way too long since I’d been in them, and I needed to try to get my head on straight.

I decided to take the trail that led to my rock since I hadn’t been there in so long. I had other reasons for wanting to go there, but they were personal. Getting out of my car and making sure it was locked tight and anything valuable was out of sight, I opened the umbrella and headed off down the trail. There were two other cars in the lot, so at least I wasn’t the only idiot out hiking in this weather.

As I walked along, I let my mind wander where it wanted. I’d done some pretty stupid things lately, so it focused on that. Mentally I went over the changes that needed to be made while making my way along the trail and avoiding the larger puddles as well as rocks and roots. At one point I could have made the hike blindfolded, but it had been too long now so I kept an eye on where I was going as I considered my situation.

The rain was coming down pretty hard now, but it didn’t concern me. I’d hiked in far worse weather before. Like that surprise thunderstorm two years prior that brought that huge old poplar down on top of that car. I sort of blamed myself for that – when the storm cropped up, I’d gotten lost in the energy and the wildness of it all and pushed for more. When I left to go home, I found the way blocked by an enormous old poplar that had somehow managed to fall uphill and across the road. It was while I was trying to figure out how it had fallen that way that I saw the car crushed beneath it.

It didn’t make me feel good. It also taught me a valuable lesson: be very careful what you wish for because words have more power than you believe they do.

When I reached the offshoot trail that traversed nearly vertical up a hill to my rock, I took it without even breaking stride. I soon found out just how out of shape I’d gotten, but I needed my rock. “Glad no one can see me now,” I muttered when I finally reached it and began carefully scaling my way up. It was wet and cold and I didn’t care – I went to the middle and knelt, mindless of the water that soaked through my black cotton pants.

Then I took a deep, cleansing breath and let the world fall away from me, oblivious to the figure slowly making his way toward me on the rock.

He climbed onto the rock with me and stood staring down at me, a smile appearing when he realized I’d gone into trance. Still wearing the smile, he settled himself right in front of me to wait. He’d waited for the moment for a long fucking time, and he couldn’t wait to see how I reacted when I saw him sitting right there.

It was only when I was sure I couldn’t connect with anyone that I came out of the trance … to find my ex sitting right in front of me.

This was the man I’d spent four years of my life in a relationship with.

This was the man who had a supposed psychotic break and threatened to have me murdered and my body hidden where it would never be found.

The was the man who faked his death on December 18th of 2014, and I had to find out through a phone call. Then, a year later I found out he had never existed. No name I knew him by existed. His phone was Google Voice. He had never been a Navy SEAL.

And shortly after that, a man I’d never seen before in my life tried to trap me on that very same rock. I was sure Nik had sent him to kill me. He didn’t match anyone I’d ever seen out there, and he wasn’t dressed for hiking. He was wearing solid black and carrying a huge black backpack, and he had blocked the only way down off that rock to try to keep me there.

I’d leaped off and hit the ground running much to his shock.

And now, here sat the motherfucker responsible.

“Been a long time, Raven,” he greeted. “Or should I be calling you Jade now?”

Mentally I assessed the situation. I could probably scramble off the rock, but he’d come after me and he was far more athletic than I was. Running wasn’t an option for me this time. He would expect it, furthermore. “Why are you here?” I asked as calmly as I could manage, keeping my eyes on those pale, piercing blue orbs. “And who are you?”

“I missed you, babe,” he replied. “Why are you asking who I am? I know you remember me.”

“Do you really expect to be able to pick up after your friend called me and said you died of fucking hypothermia in your goddamn lake?” I asked before I thought about it. “It’s been four years, Nikolai. Four years, and by the way, thanks for the attempt on my life.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, seeming confused. “Jade, I would never have tried to kill you and I sure as hell didn’t die in my lake.” He paused. “You changed your number, deleted all your social media – I had a really fucking hard time finding you, babe.”

You’re a fucking liar, I thought but didn’t say it wisely. “So you followed me in the pouring rain for what? To tell me you missed me? To start over? Why, Nik?”

“Both,” he replied and put his hand on my thigh.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, jerking back away from him.

He considered me for a moment. “Don’t be like that, babe,” he murmured and reached for me again. “You know your patron would approve of this – he’s always liked me.”

“My fucking Patron would eat you alive,” I shot back, lunging to my feet. “I am not with Lucifer, Nik. I’m Belial’s dedicated priestess now, and I don’t think he would like that you were here. For that matter, I don’t think Lucifer would like you trying to use him as leverage with me.”

Nik stood quickly, towering over me and heedless of the rain that dripped down his face. “Belial’s priestess, huh?” he said, and the look on his face right then chilled me. “Like that fucking makes any difference with me. You belong to me, Jade, and to Lucifer, and you aren’t leaving here until you see that.”

In the blink of an eye, I had drawn the 9mm from my hip pouch and trained it on him. “You are a threat to me, and you are going to leave me the fucking hell alone or so help me I will add another body to this goddamned battlefield,” I stated clearly, finger ready to pull the trigger.

“You don’t have the balls, bitch,” he growled and took a step toward me.

I pulled the trigger and proved him wrong, hitting him center mass just like I’d been taught so many years ago. The impact caught him off-guard, sending him flailing backward off the rock.

Off the very steep side of the rock.

“Fuck,” I swore, shaking now that it was done. “Fuck, I just shot him.” Taking deep, even breaths, I put the gun away and carefully moved to look over the edge.

He wasn’t there.

What the fucking hell?

“Surprise, bitch.”

I whipped around to find him standing right behind me, his chest bloody and a sick smile on his lips. It was then that I realized I was in way over my head, and I was completely fucking alone out there. I had not been able to reach Belial in trance, or any of the others either.

“You want to try that again, or did you get the message this time?” he sneered, moving toward me.

Acutely aware that I was standing too close to the edge and it was almost slick as glass, I kept silent and hoped he would give me just enough room to get past him. I might break an arm or leg, but better than falling to my death. Then again, death would be preferable to … whatever he was.

He laughed, stopping when he was maybe a foot away from me. “Looks like it’s just you and me,” he said. “Guess Belial doesn’t need you after all, Jade.”

“I’ll see myself dead before you ever touch me again,” I growled, and whipped around to throw myself off the rock – only to run straight into Belial himself.

Who did not look happy at all.

“Get off this rock,” he ordered me, flames burning in his eyes and snakes in his hair.

I didn’t argue, turning around to push past Nik - who naturally decided to be a stupid asshole and snatch me up to try to run off with me.

The growl Belial uttered made me shut my eyes tight and try to curl into a ball. I knew what was coming next. I’d heard that growl once before. Presently I was thrown to the wet ground hard enough to knock the breath out of me, and I had just turned and sat up to try to get my breath back when Belial turned on Nik.

Bone staff in one hand and Nik’s throat in the other, my Patron slammed that staff down hard and sent a shock wave of not green but black coursing into Nik. The moment it hit him, he exploded, raining blood, bone, and entrails all over everything in a twenty-foot radius that unfortunately included me.

Once Nik was no longer, he turned that baleful gaze on me. “You goddamned fool!” he spat, leaving the rock to snatch me up by my throat and pin me against a tree. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“No one was there when I went into trance, Belial,” I said carefully, “ and he looked and felt human.”

“This is why I despise working with you women,” he hissed. “You should have been more aware of your surroundings, damn you. And that you even entertained conversation with him before attempting to kill him speaks volumes.”

There was a lot I could have said to that, but I didn’t want to die so I didn’t say it. “I apologize,” I said instead. “It won’t be repeated, should this ever happen again.”

“It had best not,” he snapped. “I have far better things to do than rescue you from situations you put yourself in.”

That said he let go of me abruptly and stalked around the rock to disappear.

I took a few moments to get my bearings and then I too left the rock. I didn’t understand what had just happened, but Belial was clearly not in an explaining mood. Maybe Lilith or Stolas might be willing to tell me what the hell Nik was. At least he wasn't so pissed at me he didn't remove all the gore, I consoled myself, thankful that I wasn't walking back to the car covered in blood and thicker things.

Belial did have a valid point, though. I needed to be more aware of where I was and what was around me if I was going to do trance states in the outdoors. And if any of my exes period ever showed their face, I needed to shut them down before they even opened their mouth to speak.

How many of you here are devoted/dedicated to deity? Any deity. Hecate, The Morrigan, Odin, Loki, Set, it doesn't matter.

Those of you who are will understand, I think, what I'm about to explain (or try to).

Those of you who aren't, well, I'll do my best.

Belial has been around since I was really young. And he was one of the ones I called on when I got pissed at the whole fucking world and declared myself a Satanist at 12. There was blood involved in that, by the way. I don't do things half-ass (usually). But Lucifer got in the way, got everything fucked up, and so there was a lot of bullshit to dig through before I was able to dedicate myself to Belial as his priestess. Yes, there is history between me and Lemonboi as well as between him and Belial. It's a long, fucked-up, crazy story so I'm not going into it. What I'm going to say will be hard enough for some of y'all to swallow I think. It's just how things are though.

I have C-PTSD, brought on by assault while I was in service (Army). Even without the chemo, sometimes it's hard for me to get out of my own fucking head. But when I took on my role as Belial's priestess, well, I was going to have to figure shit out quick. He expected trance states (or meditational journeys if you prefer) from me so that he could teach me what I needed to learn. He expected me to keep up my end of the bargain to him, as his priestess.

And I did - at first. I did trance states like clockwork, I made oleums and soaps and regularly warded the house and property, I made things for friends to try to keep them safe, and I spent a lot of time in the woods. I was hiking a good five days a week, going at least 5 miles at a time. The woods made me feel safe, in a world that wasn't. I could get out of my head when I was in them. Find my balance, ground myself, you pick a term.

Belial knew that I was a writer. He knew it was something I enjoyed privately - I've been writing since I was 12. It was how I journaled things, how I dealt with stress. He gave me his blessing to do it. He didn't care that I dragged him into it.

But then along came Nosleep and ... I lost sight of things. Even before I was told I had cancer, I lost sight of who I was. I got sucked into writing, and I was on the computer all the fucking time trying to come up with content to keep readers happy with me and I quit being his priestess basically. Then cancer came along and finished destroying my life for me.

The story that Alec wrote ... hit home for me. It opened my eyes. Alec ... he doesn't belong to any pantheon or any deity. And yeah, Belial does make him nervous. Belial is dangerous, and his moods are mercurial, and I have gone into trance and had him lock me in a goddamn casket with a rotting corpse to prove a point. He. Does. Not. Fuck. Around. This is not a deity you want to be dedicated to if you don't have a spine. He will hurt you. I have warned and warned and warned that Belial isn't nice, and I fucking meant it. He's choked my ass out, and he's hunted me like I was prey.

I, through writing, turned him into something he is fucking not. And it didn't make me feel very good. Not to mention the fact that in the last two years just about, I haven't left offerings, I haven't gone into the woods, and I haven't done any fucking trance states.

And that is why I pulled anything and everything that showed him as anything less than this world ending god that he fucking is. Belial is earth, yes, but he's fucking destructive earth and besides that, he's a goddamned death god. His roots go back to Sumerian times, and no, Belial is not his original name. I've heard it, but I can't fucking spell it, so sorry.

I am okay. I have sought his counsel out, and begun to make amends for not doing my duty by him. He knows I'm sick, and that may be the only reason he's cutting me any slack right now. I have the feeling if I were healthy and had pulled this shit with him, he'd have shown me scorched earth.

I realize that a lot of you may read this and go "huh?", or you may just dismiss me as talking out of my head. That's fine. I don't' expect everyone to understand just how important it is to do what you need to do when you're dedicated to a god (or goddess, I do work with Lilith quite a bit also). There isn't going to be any content like I had here or on Wordpress again. If I ever do write my Patron again, it won't be pretty.

I got challenged to write this around a year ago by a former friend. I'm a huge fan of the movies, so I wanted to try my hand at writing something similar. Guys, this shit is brutal. Rape, assault, abuse, torture, graphic imagery ... you better have a strong stomach and not be easily triggered to read this, make no mistake. ~ Jade

Having one’s groceries delivered right to your door was nice, Charlotte decided a month after having signed up with her local market’s online delivery service. She could make out her list, and if the store was out of something they would call her with suitable recommendations. She’d discovered a few new foods that way.

It was nice not having to deal with the long checkout lines, or the rude people either. A year prior, her husband had left her for a much younger woman, and it had made her unsure of herself. She was just thirty-five, and she kept herself in excellent physical shape by doing a mix of yoga, cycling, and strength training, but being left for a twenty-two-year-old was a blow.

When the doorbell rang for her delivery, she paused at the hall mirror to look at herself. She’d just had her roots touched-up, hiding the fact that she wasn’t a natural blonde. She wasn’t wearing make-up, but her skin was unblemished, and she still had most of her tan. Her blue eyes skimmed over her reflection, taking in the curves the snug t-shirt and leggings showed off. Nodding, she turned and went on to answer the door.

The delivery man was different this week – her previous one had been tall, blond, and handsome, and she’d almost hit on him. This one was average height, average build, with light-brown hair and green eyes, and he seemed nervous. “Miss Charlotte?” he inquired, his voice cracking a bit and making him blush.

“Yes, that’s me,” she confirmed. “What happened to Chad?”

“Oh, uh, Chad,” the man stammered, shifting uncomfortably. “He quit us to go to New York to be a model or something. I’m Warren, ma’am.”

“I see,” she murmured. “Very well. My kitchen is this way.”

Warren picked up the box that contained her groceries for the week and followed behind her, closing the door with his foot carefully.

Charlotte could feel his eyes on her and knew he was checking her out. Despite the fact that he seemed a bit slow, it felt nice to know that he found her attractive. Especially after how John had just dumped her. Ten years of marriage, and he left her for some college girl. “Just set it down here, thank you,” she expressed, motioning to the kitchen table. As Warren set the box down and began carefully taking the paper bags out that held her groceries, Charlotte went into her purse to get a tip for the man. “Here,” she said, handing him a five.

“Oh, no ma’am, you don’t have to do that,” Warren expressed, blushing and picking the box up under one arm. “I do appreciate the gesture, though.”

She saw him to the door, and then went back to the kitchen to put her things away.

The following week, it was almost dark when she realized her delivery hadn’t come yet. “That’s strange,” she murmured, picking up her cell phone to pull up the grocer’s number. Right as she was pulling up her contacts, a strange number rang through. “Hello?”

“Oh, um, Miss Charlotte, this is Warren. Um, I had a flat, but I’ve got your food in a cooler and I’ll be right there as soon as I get this changed. I’m sorry, ma’am. You were my last delivery today, and I should have been there by now.”

She sighed. “Well, that’s alright. I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Yes ma’am, I should be there in twenty minutes – I’m not that far away.”

Charlotte hung up the phone, shaking her head. How many deliveries had the man had for him to run this late? She understood the flat tire wasn’t his fault, but it was nearly seven o’clock now. Muttering to herself, she went back to her office to finish up her paperwork.

Twenty minutes later, her door rang. She threw on her robe, since she was in her gown, and answered it to find a very sheepish Warren standing there. “There you are,” she greeted. “Just set them on the kitchen table for me please.”

She turned away to go back to her office, letting Warren go on to her kitchen with her groceries, so she didn’t see the two men slip inside with him. She heard the door close but paid it no attention since Warren had closed the door behind himself before.

“You’re a hot bitch.”

The accented voice at her back startled her, and she whirled to find two strange men standing in the door to her office staring at her. One was very dark-skinned, possibly from the islands somewhere, and the other had a very Mediterranean look to him. “Who the hell are you, and why are you in my house?” she demanded, backing away to her desk to fumble for her cell phone.

She just had her hand on her phone, when he snatched it out of her hand and backhanded her sharply, knocking her to the floor. Screaming, she tried to crawl away from him but he was on her before she’d gone three feet. She fought the hands that ripped at her robe and gown and got punched hard for her efforts.

“Feisty, are you?” the dark-skinned one asked, grinning. “We like our women feisty.”

Blood pouring from her nose, she kept trying to fight the Mediterranean man off her, but he was stronger than she was and not abject to hitting her. She felt him tear the robe off, and then her gown and panties while she sobbed and flailed on the floor.

“You want first dibs, Carlos?” the Mediterranean man asked the other.

Carlos shook his head, still smiling. “No, Eli, she fought so valiantly I think you should have the honors.”

Warren came to the door then, his green eyes wide at the sight of Charlotte naked and his hand groping his crotch.

Carlos gave him a smile. “You’ll have your turn with her too, Warren. After all, you found her for us.”

Charlotte scratched at Eli when he tried to mount her, and he punched her again.

“Keep fighting me bitch, I don’t have a problem with knocking you out,” he warned, hand wrapping around her throat right.

Crying openly, blood pouring from her nose and the corner of her mouth, she could do little more than shake her head back and forth while Eli, Carlos, and Warren raped her. They weren’t satisfied with once, either. She had to endure multiple assaults from the three men before they satisfied themselves. Please, just leave, she begged silently when they were done.

“Tight like a virgin,” Carlos stated, laughing. “Dear lady, you were such a gracious host, but alas, we cannot leave you like this. Warren, take her to the van please.”

“No!” she cried, trying to fight Warren off, but he hit her upside the head hard enough to stun her. In a daze, she felt herself being lifted up and carried out the door to a blue panel van, where she was thrown in the back on a dirty mattress. The three men piled into the van, and then they drove off with her.

What seemed like an hour later, they stopped the van and Carlos and Eli opened the back doors to regard her with identical smiles.

“We can’t have you telling the police what we’ve done,” Eli told her. “How long can you hold your breath, bitch?”

Horrified, she tried once again to get away from them, but Eli started in on her with his fists. He beat her good, this time, blacking both eyes and knocking loose several teeth. In too much pain to struggle, she lie there and cried while Eli and Carlos trussed her up with rope and then tied the rope to a couple of cinder blocks. They lifted her from the van, and carried her to the edge of something …

Moments later, she was falling, falling, falling, until she hit the surface of the water. Then she sank like a stone, the weight of the cinder blocks dragging her down deep. For a moment, she panicked, but then her training kicked in. What they didn’t know was that she was a certified diver – and she could hold her breath for three minutes.

Calmly, she felt for the knots that held her to the cinder blocks. They weren’t tied very tightly, so that was in her favor. Knowing better than to rush, and possibly get the rope tangled, she slowly and methodically untied the ropes that held her to the cinder blocks. Her hands were still tied together, and so were her ankles, but at least she could kick to the surface now. However, she chose to surface slowly, her eyes open now despite the sting of the water and searching for any signs of light above.

By the time she broke the surface, her lungs were burning, but there were no signs of her attackers. She allowed herself to go over onto her back, floating in the darkness for the time being while she considered her options. She needed to get the rope off her wrists and ankles, and while she could likely get it off her ankles, her wrists would present a problem. She also needed to figure out where the hell she was, and find some way to cover her nudity to get home.

The mild current in the water carried her to a rickety old dock. Angling herself against a post, she worked the knots loose on the rope that bound her ankles and then kicked her way to the shore beside the dock. On hands and knees, she crawled out of the water and looked around.

There on the dock was a tackle box. Surely she could find something inside to cut the rope off her wrists. Carefully she made her way onto the dock and to the box to open it.

Yes, there was a filet knife inside.

Holding it between her knees with the sharp side facing outward, she sawed at the wet rope.

It took her nearly ten minutes to sever the rope, but at last, she was free. Holding onto the knife, she rose and walked off the dock to examine her surroundings. A few feet into the treeline she found a shack – fishing cabin, likely. It was padlocked, but she didn’t let that stop her. She found a good-sized rock and bashed at it until one end of the latch pulled free of the rotting wood, allowing her into the cabin.

Moth-eaten blankets, wading boots, an oil lantern … aha. There was a poncho in a dark color. Shaking it out to be sure there were no spiders hiding in the folds, she slipped it on and then did the same with a pair of boots. Now she could try to find her way out of there.

Charlotte had already decided she wasn’t going to the hospital or calling the police. She didn’t have names that she trusted giving them, and she well knew without solid evidence those men would be free to come back and kill her while the police tried to find them. No, she was going to go home, tend her injuries herself, and let them think she was dead. She had enough food at the house to last her another week, and she could always make a very late-night run to the Walmart …

“I need a disguise though,” she muttered to herself. “I need to change my hair color and eye color.” Then she remembered they had no idea what she drove since her car was in the garage. Well, unless they’d gone back to her house and taken everything she had. She hoped they weren’t in her house when she finally made it home. “Now I’m glad I didn’t take that house in the subdivision. I don’t have close neighbors, and if I’m lucky, I can stay out of sight the whole way there. If I’m lucky. I have no idea where the hell I am.”

Remembering what her grandfather had taught her about direction if she had no compass, she looked to the sky first and then to the trees. Orienting herself to which way was north, she struck out south, feeling like that was the way she needed to go. Finding a well-worn path, she traveled along it for a while and was elated when she found a sign.

Blackwater Lake.

“I’m ten miles from home,” she told herself. “Ten miles, and south as I thought. I can follow the main road, and duck into the bushes if a car comes.”

She followed the path out to the road and then headed south while keeping an ear out for approaching vehicles. Not many people traveled along the road past the lake that late at night, it seemed, because she had to duck very few times. Still, it was slow going, and every moment that passed made her afraid she was going to be spotted by her assailants.

It was midnight when she finally caught sight of her house. The light was still on in the office, but the front door was closed. Charlotte opted to go around to the back door, where she’d hidden her spare key beneath a rock under a bush. As silently as she could, she unlocked her kitchen door and let herself inside her home.

Her weeks’ worth of groceries still sat on the table, untouched. Her purse was exactly where she had left it, also untouched. Removing the boots, she gripped the filet knife and padded down the hall to the front where her office and the den was, her eyes and ears peeled for her assailants.

Nothing had been touched, and the front door was locked. Coming out of the poncho, she pulled on her torn gown and then headed up the stairs silently to check her bedroom and the spare. They were both empty, untouched. So, she had been raped, kidnapped to the lake and left for dead, and those three had just called it done.

Good.

Going back downstairs, she checked her house one final time to make sure they hadn’t taken her keys or anything they could use to get back into her house before bolting the front and back door. Yes, they could have gone and had copies made, but her keys were in the same spot in her purse as before and she knew those bastards had no way of knowing where her spare key was. Then she went to the kitchen to pour the milk down the sink and throw the meat into the trash. It had sat out for a good four hours – it wouldn’t be safe to eat. Satisfied everything was secure, she went upstairs to clean up, leaving the office light on in case they drove by to look.

She called her boss the following morning claiming a family emergency to get a few days off from work. He gave her a week since she was one of his best employees, which she was grateful for. She couldn’t take the chance of leaving the house until late that night, so she occupied her time by getting online and seeing if she could find out who Carlos, Eli, and Warren really were. “Time to dust off those hacking skills,” she muttered, going to her grocer’s online site.

Thirty minutes later she knew that Warren’s name really was Warren, his last name was Edwards, he was thirty-four, unmarried, no children, and lived with his mother fifteen minutes away in a nice subdivision. Another twenty minutes, and she had his mother’s name and phone number. “I wonder, Miss Edith, how you would feel to find out your son is a rapist and attempted murderer?” she mused darkly. “I’ll bet you think your boy can do no wrong, though.”

Charlotte knew she would have to talk to Edith Edwards to try to track down Carlos and Eli, but she couldn’t do it from her cell phone and it would be best if she altered her voice. Well, that wasn’t a problem. She could use the phone at the convenient store, and thanks to her husband’s philandering ways, she had gotten good at altering her voice so she could find the bastard.

Ten o’clock that night saw her leaving with her hair under a ball cap and make-up hiding her bruises. She drove to the convenient store first, where she made the call to Edith Edwards. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to call you this late, but I know Warren is friends with Carlos and Eli, and I’m trying to get in touch with them,” she said in her best Texas drawl when Edith answered.

“Oh, honey, why do you want to get hold of those two rascals?” Edith asked her.

“Well, I don’t like saying this, but one of them left my sister in a bad way, and I don’t even have last names,” she lied.

“Lord, I knew those two were bad news,” Edith expressed. “Carlos Alleyne, and Eli Demir, honey. And good luck to you and your sister. Find you a good lawyer and take whoever is responsible for all he’s worth, you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am, and thank you so much – Sophie’s in her junior year of college in nursing – she sure didn’t need this happening to her,” Charlotte added, grinning coldly. After Edith hung up with her, she laughed. “Gotcha, you bastards.”

From the convenient store, she drove to Walmart to find a box of semi-permanent dye. She decided on fire-engine red – she figured it would be easier to go back to blonde from red than brown. She also bought some clothes while she was there – clothes she’d never be caught dead in – and more makeup in colors that would accent the red hair. Since they had a food section, she browsed through it to pick up what few things she’d need for the next week and then headed to the check out line.

She was halfway there when an idea struck her. Turning, she went to the hardware section to buy new locks for her doors and a “For Sale” sign as well. She ventured to the electronics section and picked up a burner phone next. Then she went to check out.

Her heart was racing by the time she got home, but she’d made it there and back without incident. After putting her groceries away, she went upstairs to mix and apply the dye, noting that it looked like blood. Then she went back downstairs to open a bottle of wine and relax while the dye set.

An hour later, she was done. She ran her fingers through fiery locks, noting that she looked very different with the red hair. That was the whole point, so that was good. Going back down the stairs, she changed out the locks on her back door first and then did the front door. She set up her burner phone with a fake name and jotted that number down on the “For Sale” sign. She would need to wait at least a month before she could put the sign out, but that was fine. That would give her more time to plan out her course of actions, and by then the bruises would be gone as well.

In a month, she’d put that sign out in her front yard. If anyone called that didn’t sound like Carlos, Eli, or Warren, she’d just tell them it was pending contract. But if one of those three called, she was going to pass herself off as her “sister” and invite them for a showing they’d never forget.

In the next few weeks that passed, Charlotte did late-night shopping at Walmart and a chain grocer that stayed open all night in the next county over. She also found a dentist an hour away to fix her teeth for her. When the dentist asked how she’d come to have so many teeth knocked out, she lied and told him she’d gotten thrown off a horse into a tree.

Charlotte had never ridden in her life, but the dentist wouldn’t know that.

A look at her savings and she bit the bullet and sought out a plastic surgeon as well, to repair her nose. She also made an appointment with an optometrist for an exam for colored lenses. For all of her doctors’ appointments, she left the house the night before and stayed at a hotel, leaving just the light in her office on. She never turned it off, now.

She had also gotten a post office box and changed her address just with her bank, her employer, and her utility companies. The rest of the mail she let pile up in her mailbox – it didn’t matter. Because all the blinds had been drawn tight the night she was raped and kidnapped, she didn’t alter them. No one could see in from any window downstairs or upstairs.

From all outward appearances, the house looked abandoned.

That was exactly what she wanted.

She convinced her boss to let her work from home – since she worked for a software firm, that was easily enough arranged. She had the programs she needed on her computer, and access to the company’s files as well. Grady asked her if she was alright, and she simply told him that working from home would allow her more time to work on the programs. Well, it would, and she would spend more time working on them. He laughed, called her a workaholic, and agreed to let her work from home for a while.

Charlotte started looking into Carlos Alleyne first, wanting to get a feel for him and Eli Demir. Carlos was born in Trinidad, was forty-five years old, single, and had a criminal record a mile long. “Not surprised,” she muttered, looking at the multiple charges for drugs, assault, DUIs, and armed robbery. No, Carlos was not a nice man, not at all. His address listed him in a seedy part of town, and Charlotte reckoned that was probably accurate given his history.

Eli Demir was next. Eli was born in Turkey, had immigrated to the States when he was eighteen, was three years younger than Carlos, and had a record himself. Eli’s charges were for rape and battery, and she noted with disgust that three of his victims had been minors. “Sick bastard,” she muttered, scanning for his address.

Bingo. He lived with Carlos.

At the end of a month, Charlotte traded her silver Lexus for a black Wrangler with a lift, light bar, and winch. She didn’t park it on the garage, though, wanting to leave it out for everyone to see. She also stuck the “For Sale” sign in her yard. She hunted down one of her friends from college and had him make her fake IDs that said her name was Carmen Blake, and that she lived in Houston, Texas. The Jeep had come with Texas plates, and she had thirty days to change them, so she left them on for now.

The only hitch in her plan was her boss coming by to check on her.

Grady had taken one look at the Jeep, the “For Sale” sign, and her red hair and green eyes, and raised an eyebrow. “Charlotte, what’s going on?”

Charlotte sighed heavily. She’d known Grady for twelve years now – he needed an explanation. “Might as well come in,” she murmured, letting him into the house.

She told him everything that had happened over a beer and told him she wanted revenge. He was understandably afraid for her, given what the three men had already done to her, but then she pulled out her rifle and broke it down right there in front of him in less than a minute. “I’m an expert marksman, Grady, as well as a certified diver, and I have a black belt in karate, taekwondo, and jiu-jitsu. My grandfather was of the opinion that a woman this day and age needed to be able to take care of herself,” she explained. “If it hadn’t been that late at night, and I hadn’t been distracted by work, those three would have left in body bags.”

“If the police”–

“They will never find out it was me, Grady, and that I can assure you,” she interrupted, a cold, calculating expression on her face. “Unless, of course, you decide to tell them.”

“No,” he said at once. “No, those men deserve their fate. Just please, Charlotte, be careful. They’ll kill you next time.”

Charlotte took up hiking the trails around Blackwood Lake, memorizing which ones were the most remote. She discovered a few more fishing cabins, just as dilapidated as the one she’d gotten the poncho and boots from. A grim smile on her lips, she marked them discreetly and began stashing what she’d need in them. It was clear that no one ever went to them, much less used them, so she felt safe leaving choice items in them.

She got quite a few calls about the house, but not from who she wanted. It looked like she was going to have to go to them, to lure them out somehow. Since Warren had worked for her local grocery store, she hopped in her Jeep and headed over there. Popping a piece of gum in her mouth when she parked in the lot, she hopped out and went inside.

The store manager met her as she walked in. “Can I help you, Miss?”

“Well, maybe,” she drawled, chewing her gum obnoxiously. “My sister’s gone missing, and I found her last order from here rotting on the kitchen table. You don’t happen to know who took her groceries to her, do you?”

“That would be Warren Edwards,” he replied, looking disturbed. “Come with me.”

Charlotte let the manager lead her to the back of the store, where the orders were bagged up and put into boxes to be delivered. She spotted Warren at once and fought not to grin at him. When the manager called him over, she watched as Warren took notice of her and gave him a big, fake smile.

“Sir?” Warren asked, his green eyes wide.

“This young lady’s sister is missing, and you may have been the last to see her,” the manager explained.

Charlotte watched Warren closely from behind her sunglasses, saw him swallow hard, and then pushed her sunglasses back to look him in the eyes. “Charlotte’s been gone for over a month now – the police think she’s dead. When was the last time you saw her?”

You’re a damned liar, she wanted to say, but instead, she sighed. “Well, I’m at her house, trying to get her things in order,” she said. “I’m Carmen. If you remember anything at all about the last delivery you made to her, let me know please.”

Thanking the manager, Charlotte left the store and went home. She knew Warren would tell Carlos and Eli that “Carmen” was looking into the disappearance of her “sister”. When they came for her, she’d be ready.

Here's the end of it. Remember, this isn't light reading! I was challenged to be as sadistic as I could, and not spare anything. I'ts pretty ugly, pretty gruesome, and a lot nightmare fuel. ~ Jade

Two days later, her burner phone rang. “Hello?” she answered.

“Yes, I am calling about the house that you have for sale.”

It was Carlos. She knew that accented voice. Grinning, she propped on her table. “Well, it belonged to my sister, but she’s run off somewhere and can’t no one seem to find her,” she drawled.

“I see. I would like to meet you in person to discuss the purchase of this house.”

“Sure thing,” she agreed. “I was gonna go for a hike in about fifteen minutes down at that lake a bit south of here – I can’t think of the name of it. If you want, I could meet you out there. It’s pretty private.”

“That will be fine – I assume you are meaning the lake off Route Seven?”

“Yep, that would be it,” she confirmed. “I’ll be in a black Jeep Wrangler, and I’m a redhead, so I doubt you’ll miss seeing me, Mister …”

“Yes, I will be there in half an hour. I will be the handsome West Indian.”

“Well, sugar, I figured you weren’t from around here with that musical accent of yours,” she complimented. “I’ll see you in half an hour, Carl.”

Charlotte left the house at once, heading for the lake to make sure she was set up when he arrived. Hopefully, he was coming alone – if Eli was with him, this was going to be difficult. Not impossible, just difficult. Parking the Jeep in a conspicuous spot, she hopped out and eyed the trails. “Me and you are gonna take a little walk, Carlos,” she murmured, eyeing the west trail. Slipping several knives into different places in her shorts, socks, and bra, she did some stretching to limber up while she waited on him.

Carlos pulled up in a black BMW, and she grinned and waved. Good, he was alone. As he got out of his vehicle, she assessed him quickly. He was six feet, and slender. He was dressed in baggy cargo shorts and a polo shirt with tennis shoes. Sure, he could have a gun on him, but she didn’t think he did. “You must be Carl,” she greeted as he walked up to her.

“I am, beautiful lady,” he confirmed, smiling. “My, you are small to have such a big vehicle.”

On the way to the fishing cabin, Charlotte told him how weird it was that her “sister” would have just disappeared like that, and how the delivery guy for the grocery store seemed nervous. “I wonder if he saw something,” she expressed, looking up at Carlos.

“It is doubtful, Carmen,” Carlos told her, waving it off. “I have seen this man, Warren. He’s not what you would call a functioning member of society. I believe he is mentally incompetent.”

“Oh,” Charlotte said. “I guess that would explain how he was acting.”

Carlos asked her about the house, inquiring if there were any signs of anything inside. She told him no, it looked like her sister had just walked out and left everything behind including her purse and the groceries she’d ordered. She told him the mail was piled up in the mailbox, but her car was missing. “It ain’t like Charlotte to run off in her car without her purse,” she told him. “Me, I do that a lot. But not Charlotte.”

When they reached the cabin, Charlotte readied herself. She would have one chance, and one chance only to make this work. “Oh, hey, look at that,” she remarked, smiling. “I wonder what’s inside?”

“The door is open,” Carlos said, and she noted he was eyeing her pretty good right then. “Up for a little urban exploring, Carmen?”

She grinned broadly, though not for the reason he suspected. “Always.”

As Carlos pushed the door open to go inside, Charlotte picked up the rock she’d left beside the door. Before he had a chance to turn around, she struck him in the back of the head as hard as she could and knocked him to the floor. While he was stunned, she picked up the bottle of chloroform she’d ordered and left just inside the door and poured it liberally onto a rag, then pressed the rag to his face firmly.

When she was sure he was out, she moved back from him. “Alright, you son of a bitch,” she hissed, “now I show you why you shouldn’t have targeted me.”

She dragged him bodily from the cabin, some fifty yards into the bushes. Working quickly, she cut his clothing from him and removed shoes and socks as well, setting everything aside. Thick rope was knotted around each wrist and ankle, and then tied securely to a long, metal rod that she drove into the ground with a small sledgehammer. He was staked spread-eagle on the ground, face-up, with the ropes taut so that he wouldn’t be able to get enough leverage to try to free himself. Satisfied with that, she stuffed his belongings into a trash bag and went deeper into the brush to the trash heap she’d spotted weeks ago. Carefully making her way into the heart of it, she used a tree branch to push enough garbage aside to bury his belongings under. Then she turned around and went back to Carlos.

Using the rusty knife she’d found inside the cabin, she started making long cuts on his arms, legs, and torso, rousing him from his drugged slumber at once.

“You crazy bitch! What is the meaning of this?” he yelled.

“Carlos, Carlos, Carlos,” she said, shaking her head and making his eyes widen. “You didn’t really think you were going to get away with what you did to me that night, now did you?”

“You! You were supposed to be dead!”

She put the tip of the bloody, rusty knife under his left eye. “Certified diving instructor, asshole,” she said and ran the blade into his eye. Straightening, she considered his bloody, screaming form for a moment, and went back to the cabin for another rag. “Can’t have you screaming like that,” she told him and used the end of a stick to ram half the rag up his ass. Yanking it out, she eyed the soiled rag in disgust. Then she bent, pinched his nose shut, and crammed it well into his mouth when he opened it to draw breath. “That should keep you. I’ll be back in a few days, Carlos.”

Going back to her Jeep, she took out a screwdriver and removed the plates from his car, throwing them far into the lake from the shore. She also took out several cans of brown spray paint and went over his car with them, making sure to cover up the black. Tossing the empty cans into the back of her Jeep, she got in and drove home. No one ever parked in that lot at the lake – she’d watched it for the last month to see how many cars were in the lot, and she never saw the first one. It would be a while before Carlos was reported missing, and even longer before they found his car in the lot.

Warren would be next, she decided when she had gotten a shower and disposed of what little evidence she had. She knew he was still working at the grocery store as their delivery boy, and she knew she was still in his area. She also knew that he loved brownies, so she baked up a special batch just for him. While they were in the oven, she placed a small order with the store for milk, eggs, and bread, and then went upstairs to change into a pair of tiny yoga shorts and a crop top with holes in strategic areas.

When Warren showed up at her door, she plastered on a thousand-watt smile. “Oh, hey there! Warren, right?” At his shy smile and nod, she threw the door open. “Come on in, honey – I’m about to take some brownies out of the oven. You want one?”

“Um, well …”

“Oh, don’t be shy!” she said, turning to give him another thousand-watt smile. “I won’t tell nobody if you don’t.”

She pressed two brownies on him, making sure she kept his attention by leaning and bending as she put her things away. Turning around, she hopped up on the table itself beside him so that her cleavage was almost in his face and smiled. “I thought Texas folks were friendly – y’all sure know how to make a girl feel welcome here,” she expressed.

“You-you’re from Texas?” he stammered out, blinking a bit owlishly.

“I sure am,” she lied, keeping the smile on. “Houston, Texas is where I call home. It’s a great big city, but I don’t mind it none.”

“I-I feel funny,” Warren said, blinking harder.

“Well, it’s mighty hot out there,” she suggested. “Why don’t you have a seat for a bit, and I’ll fix you a glass of something to drink. Whatcha like?”

“I can drive you there, or I can take you to the hospital if you want,” Charlotte said, looking concerned. “Here, let me help you out to my Jeep. Your truck will be fine here until you can come get it, I promise you. I hope you don’t think it was my brownies.”

Warren looked confused, letting her walk him out the door to her Jeep and then help him into the passenger seat. “I-I don’t know,” he mumbled as she got in on the driver’s side and cranked it up.

“You just rest, sugar,” she told him. “I’ll get you on to the ER – you might be having a heat stroke or something, the way you look.”

Warren was out cold, though.

Smiling grimly, Charlotte drove not to the lake, but to the abandoned sawmill. She knew a back way in, and no one ever went there either. Originally she had planned to take them all to the lake, but that wasn’t a good idea, so she’d stashed some tools in her Jeep instead. When she rolled up to the sawmill, she turned off the Jeep and looked at a snoring Warren in her passenger seat. “Your mama is gonna be so upset,” she murmured. “Oh, well.”

Hopping out, she grabbed what she would need and took it to the saw first. She knew the saw still worked – she’d tested it out a week ago. With it being so far out away from everything, she wouldn’t even have to gag him. Pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves, she went back to the Jeep and opened the passenger side door. Thankfully, Warren wasn’t quite as heavy as Carlos had been, so she was able to drag him over to the saw and then lay him down on the carrier. She didn’t even bother undressing him, going about tying him down securely. Once he was bound, she slapped him sharply. “Wake the fuck up, pig,” she growled.

“You could have said no,” she reminded him sharply. “You could have run and gotten help, but instead you chose to join them, so fuck you, Warren.” She threw the lever, and the blade roared to life. “Bye, Warren! I’ll tell your mama what a good boy you were, don’t you worry!”

Stepping back, she stood and watched as he was pulled into that spinning blade. His screams turning shrill, she watched blood spray in an arc, looking like rubies in the sunlight, as that saw blade cut him right down the middle neatly. When it was over, she walked back over and turned the blade off, walked to her Jeep, and drove home without looking back.

Eli was the last one, and she knew he was going to pose a problem for her. By now, she figured he knew Carlos had gone missing, and Carlos may have even told Eli he was meeting with her. Charlotte would have to be very aware of her surroundings at all times, to make sure the Turk didn’t catch her unaware and finish her off. She had plans for him, plans she wanted to see through.

But first, she needed another remote location.

Pulling up Google maps on the computer, she browsed around the county on satellite imaging.

There was an abandoned bunker fifteen miles away, down what looked like a dirt or gravel road.

Grabbing her keys, she left the house to scout it out. She almost missed the driveway to it, it was so overgrown, and she had to put the Jeep into four-wheel-drive to get down it, but it was perfect. A large, concrete bunker sat in the middle of a field, surrounded by trees and bushes. The door was open, so she went inside to see if there was anything in there she could use. “Oh, my,” she said, smiling gleefully.

A chain hung from the ceiling, on a pulley system. There was a large, rusted metal trough over in the corner and a lot of different pieces of machinery that she didn’t know what they were, but she was sure she could figure out how to rig up and use. Going back out to the Jeep, she grabbed up some tools and got to work. Charlotte was a resourceful woman, and her phone had internet access even out there.

Three hours later, she stepped back and surveyed her work. She had constructed a metal cross and then attached that cross to the chain, and at one end of the cross, she had attached a thick rope that went to a device that would flip it horizontally. The device, she’d discovered once she got it up and running, could be set to turn on and off at specified times.

Another device held a metal rod that was rounded at one end and hollow, and she had dragged it to line up with the cross when it was horizontal. The device worked like a piston, thrusting the metal rod some ten or twelve inches on every revolution – which could be sped up or slowed down.

There was a car battery in there, and she found enough copper wire that she could hook the ends up to the battery.

She had also discovered there was a broken water main over the chain, and when she turned the water on just a bit, water dripped straight down a few inches away from the cross.

“Well, Eli, now it’s your turn,” she murmured, satisfied with her setup. She knew he drove the ragged old panel van – she’d have to keep an eye out for it and see if she could get him to follow her out there. After making double sure that everything worked the way she had it set up, she closed the door and got back into her Jeep to head home and clean up.

The next day, she drove out to the lake to check on Carlos. His car was still in the lot, exactly as it had been left. Smiling, she grabbed a small container and headed down the west trail whistling to herself as she walked. Ten feet away from him, she heard muffled sounds and grinned. “Aww, what’s the matter Carlos?” she asked cheerfully, moving into his line of sight. His wounds had festered, and flies were moving in to lay eggs in the weeping gashes she’d made. He had also soiled himself. “Are you not enjoying the fresh air out here? What a silly question – how can you smell anything over the scent of your own shit?”

He glared up at her, making her laugh loudly.

“Here, let me give you a hand,” she expressed and started pouring honey on him. The honey would attract more insects, and scavengers as well. “There, that ought to sweeten you up. Oh, by the way – Warren says hello. He had to split, though, so he won’t be by to see you.”

That said, she turned around and left him baking in the sun.

Two days later, she was heading back to check on Carlos when she noticed a familiar panel van behind her. “Now or never,” she muttered to herself, turning to head to the bunker instead. Eli followed her – good. She drove along at a steady pace, singing along to the music and acting like she had no idea anyone was following her. When she neared the driveway to the bunker, she slowed down to put it into four-wheel-drive and then made the turn. Briefly, she wondered if he would try to follow her in that raggedy van. The driveway was badly overgrown, but the van had enough clearance to get over the deadfall if Eli was careful. She drove on, glancing in the rear-view mirror to find that he was still behind her at a bit of a distance.

Good. That would give her time to have the mace in her hand when she parked. She knew he was going to come at her in a rage.

Charlotte parked the Jeep by the door to the bunker, her mace held tight in her right hand as she opened the door to hop out. She heard an engine revving a few times before it went quiet, and then the sound of cursing. He’d gotten stuck then. That was even better. She walked to the door and went inside, leaving it ajar and pressing against the wall beside it to wait.

The second Eli’s face showed in the open doorway, she sprayed him with the mace. As he swung around, punching at nothing, she pulled out the taser and zapped him good to stun him. He dropped like a sack of potatoes on the ground just outside the doorway, muscles seized up and eyes squeezed shut against the mace she’d hosed him down with.

Charlotte pulled on a mask and a pair of thick rubber gloves, then grabbed him by the feet and dragged him far enough into the building to tie the rope around his ankles tight so she could use the pulley to hoist him up onto the metal cross. Eli wasn’t a small man, and she was glad she didn’t have to drag him far. She worked quickly, weaving the rope around his ankles securely before tying it off in a square knot. Then she went over to the pulley system and began hoisting him off the floor of the bunker. Once she had him level with where she wanted him on that cross, she tied his hands to the bar that intersected the main and undid the rope around his ankles to tie them to the crossbar as well before running the rope back up to the pulley system, leaving him in an upside-down spread-eagle position. That done, she took out a knife and cut his clothes from him to toss them aside for the time being. Once she had him naked, she took the copper wire she’d found and wrapped it around his flaccid penis. One end of the wire was hooked to the ground, and the other she left loose for now. She stepped back to look at the Turk for a moment before picking up a pair of insulated pliers to briefly touch the other end of the wire to the positive on the battery.

Eli screamed, his body going rigid on the metal cross before convulsing violently.

“Awake now, asshole?” Charlotte asked harshly.

“Fuck you, bitch!” Eli spat.

“No, Eli, you already did that I’m afraid,” she reminded him, watching him go still. “Yeah, remember me now? The woman you raped and sodomized before tossing into the lake to drown? Well, I’m still fucking here, and now it’s your turn.”

She turned the machine on that pulled the cross horizontal, lining up the hollow, metal rod between his cheeks. She’d thoughtfully coated it in engine grease, so it should go in smoothly. Smiling coldly, she turned the machine on and watched as it forced the rod deep into his ass.

Eli screamed and writhed in the ropes that held him, fighting to get away from the rod. It was no use, however. As the rod breached him fully, he vomited onto the floor.

“You like that, big boy?” she asked conversationally, slowly turning it up. “You like a big cock in that tight ass of yours? I mean, that’s what you asked me when you were raping me.”

“You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you for this!” Eli screamed.

Charlotte just laughed, turning it up until the rod was pounding in and out of his ass. She could see a mixture of engine grease, blood, and shit on the rod and shook her head. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me to fuck you in the ass, Eli,” she told him plainly.

She let the machine fuck him for a good ten minutes, and then turned it off to turn him back vertical over the metal trough. Going over to the water main, she turned it on enough for water to start hitting him in the face before running off into the trough. “So, Eli, tell me,” she began, “why did you three decide to make me a target?”

“Fuck you!” Eli spat, shaking his head violently.

“Are you asking for another round with my fucking machine, Eli?” she inquired sweetly. “I think you enjoyed that.”

“You goddamned sick bitch!”

She neatly stuck the end of the wire to the terminal again in response, watching him arch and go rigid before convulsing. This time, he pissed himself, and it went right in his face. “You like golden showers, Eli?” she asked, chuckling to herself as he swore and shook his head again. “I have all the time in the world with you, big boy. No one knows this place exists, after all. But before I leave, let me adjust your position. I don’t want you dying on me just yet.”

Charlotte turned him back horizontal and turned the piston back on as well at a slow pace. She knew the grease would wear off soon, and then the metal rod would be rubbing his asshole raw, but she didn’t care. “Now, you hang tight for me, Eli. I’ll be back tomorrow to see how cooperative you are then.”

She left the bunker, finding that he had gotten his van stuck trying to cross the last section of deadfall. Laughing, she neatly went around the van and headed to see how Carlos was faring.

Carlos was delirious with fever, and had chunks missing from his legs – something had shown up to have a nice meal, obviously. His wounds were infested with maggots, and dripping thick pus. He’d shit himself again, so the area stunk to high heaven.

“You stink,” she told him, holding a hand over her nose and mouth.

Carlos rolled his eyes and made a faint sound, his head lolling back and forth slowly.

“I’d have brought Eli with me to visit you, but he’s tied up at the moment,” she expressed, giggling a bit. “As it turns out, your friend just loves having a big rod up his ass.”

Carlos just made another muffled sound, unable to focus his eyes on her.

“Alright then, Carlos,” she said. “I’ll be back in another day or two. You just relax and soak up more of that sun.”

On her way home, Grady called on her personal cell phone. “Hello, Grady,” she answered, smiling.

“You seem in good spirits,” he hedged.

Charlotte laughed. “Let’s just say that life is very, very good right now,” she told him. “Oh, I finished debugging that program for you this morning. You shouldn’t have any more problems out of it.”

“That’s wonderful news, Charlotte. Maybe I should have been letting you work from home this whole time – you’ve been ten times more productive. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. You’ve always been my best.”

“Thank you, Grady, that means a great deal to me,” she replied, flattered.

“Well, I mean that.” He paused. “I just wanted to call and check on you, Charlotte, make sure you were alright. If you need anything, let me know.”

“Isn’t your wife a nurse?” she asked, thinking.

“Yeah, Sarah’s an RN, why?”

“I have need of a couple of things,” she began. “Nothing illegal, but nothing I can get my hands on without seeing a doctor, and even then I doubt I can get my hands on them.”

“What do you need?” Grady asked, and she could hear the confusion in his voice.

“Viagra for a month, and an anal speculum,” she replied.

Grady was silent for a long time, and she began to wonder if maybe she shouldn’t have asked for those things when he finally chuckled. “Yeah, she can get those things easily enough. I’ll give her a buzz, have her bring them home with her. I can get them to you tonight, but it’ll be midnight.”

“I’ll still be up,” she assured him.

Grady brought her the items she’d asked for at just before midnight. He didn’t stay long, and he didn’t ask her what she planned to use them for. After he’d left, she pulled the speculum out of the paper bag and examined it to familiarize herself with how it worked. The blades were tapered at the end, swelling out in the middle and then tapering more sharply afterward. She quickly realized it was designed to lock into place and not be expelled – this was wonderful. Taking three of the viagra pills, she ground them into a powder and then put the powder in a small container that had a tight lid. Then she went to bed.

The next morning she drove out to the bunker to check on Eli. He was either asleep or unconscious on the cross, the piston still driving the bloodied rod in and out of him at a steady pace. Charlotte turned the machine off, and let the cross go back vertical over the trough. That roused him, and at the sight of her he started cursing again. “Really, Eli, you’re in no position to be saying ugly things to me,” she pointed out, opening the container to add water to it and shake it thoroughly. Once it was mixed up good, she located a step-ladder and drug it over to him to climb it so that she could reach his ass. Quickly, she pushed the speculum into him and then forced it open wide, making him curse her more vehemently.

“You fucking sick goddamned bitch! You just wait – the police are gonna find me and they’re gonna put your ass in jail for this, and I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth!”

Charlotte just laughed at him, neatly pouring the mixture into his gaping ass. With him upside-down, there was no way he could expel it, so he was sure to get the full effect once it was absorbed.

“What the fuck? What the fucking hell are you doing, bitch? What the fuck did you just put up my ass?”

“You’ll see,” she demurred, making sure the wire was wrapped quite snugly around his flaccid penis before climbing down. She went over to the water main, but this time the water came down in a small stream to run over his face and drain into the trough. Smiling, she pulled up a chair near him and waited.

Sure enough, half an hour later he grew hard whether he wanted to or not, and that copper wire bit deep into the flesh of his penis. The water in the trough was touching the top of his head now also – if she left it running, in less than three hours’ time his head would be underwater up to his chin. Rising to her feet, she offered him a chilling smile and twisted his nipple viciously. “You just stay put, Eli,” she told him. “I’m going to see how your friend Carlos is doing. I’ll tell him you said hello.”

Carlos, sadly, was no longer among the living when she reached him. Wild animals had half-eaten him, and what was left was riddled with maggots. Shrugging, she turned around to go back to Eli.

The water had risen another six inches in the trough when she arrived back at the bunker, and Eli was starting to realize he was in trouble.

“Hey, listen, maybe we can work out a deal, huh?” he tried, watching her as she crossed to the chair to seat herself again.

“Lady, please!” he begged. “This was all Warren and Carlos’ idea, not mine!”

“As I told Warren when he blamed the two of you for my fate that night, you had a choice, Eli,” she bit out, rising to her feet to pick up the insulated pliers. “You could have kept them from hurting me, or run out the door and gone for help. But you did neither. In fact, you hurt me the most of the three of you.” She grabbed the end of the wire with the pliers. “So here’s your fucking answer, you sick fuck.”

Sparks flew off him when she touched the wire to the battery terminal, and he screamed shrilly.

“How do you think those twelve-year-old girls felt when you raped them, Eli?” she demanded, backing off from the battery for a moment. “Do you think they’d have made a deal with you after you hurt them?” She touched the wire to the battery again, relishing his screams.

“For the love of God, please stop!” Eli screamed. The flesh on his penis was starting to blister and bleed from the wire biting into the flesh and the electricity running through the wire.

“Did you stop when I begged you to?” Charlotte countered, and touched the terminal again. This time, she held it there a bit longer, watching him closely to see how far she could push. Right before he went limp, she took it away and then rose to walk over to pull the cross down horizontal. The viagra-water mixture ran out of him, along with fecal material, but she paid it no heed. Snatching the speculum out of him without closing it, she made sure the hollow rod was lined up perfectly with his abused asshole and then cranked the machine on. Once it was thrusting in and out of him, she turned it all the way up and stepped back to watch it rape his ass.

Eli screamed for a long time, writhing hard enough in his bonds that his wrists began to bleed. He screamed until the screams became open sobbing, but still Charlotte stood there and watched. Bright-red blood coated the rod that thrust in and out of him, running down the crack of his ass to drip onto the floor.

“Enough is enough,” Charlotte muttered to herself and picked up the end of the wire in the pliers again. “Bye-bye, Eli.” She put the end of the wire on the terminal and put the cap on over it to hold it there.

Eli shrieked, his body arching and going rigid on the cross. The copper wire began to glow, burning into the flesh of his penis and sending electricity through his body to the metal rod that violated him. There was an arc of white, and Eli began to jerk violently on the cross.

Five minutes later, and he was gone. His flesh was charred here and there, and the copper wire had burned in half around his penis.

Nodding to herself, Charlotte turned the machine off and disconnected the wire from the battery before doing a quick check of the bunker to make sure she was leaving nothing behind that could connect her to Eli’s death. She took the gloves, the speculum, and the container she’d brought the viagra mixture in and left the bunker. There was a burn barrel about ten yards behind it, so she took everything over to that and piled dead branches on top of it. Going back to the Jeep, she found her pack of matches and then went back to set it all on fire. She stayed with it until it had burned itself out, wanting to make sure the evidence was at least charred before she left.

As she got into her Jeep to leave, she considered everything. Eli and Carlos wouldn’t be missed, but Warren would. Well, she’d had a towing company take the truck to the junkyard to be crushed, having forged paperwork saying her ex-husband owned it. Pulling down the driveway, she eyed Eli’s raggedy van and opted to just leave it where it was unaltered. The bunker was completely abandoned, and in a few days the driveway would go back to looking like no one had been up it.

Charlotte went back to her house to get a shower and then headed to her local grocery store to pick up what she needed. As she walked inside, she saw the manager trying to console an older lady – Edith Edwards, likely, Warren’s mother. She started to keep walking, but the manager spotted her.

“Miss Carmen, do you remember when Warren dropped your groceries off to you?” he asked.

“Three days ago, why?” she answered, looking confused.

“He never came home that night,” Edith said, wiping her eyes. “My boy’s gone missing, and this isn’t like him.”

“Could he be with a friend?” she suggested.

Edith sighed. “If he’s gone off with that Eli and Carlos, there’s no telling what they’ve gotten him into. Those men are no good. I don’t know what Warren was thinking to take up with them.”

Charlotte offered a sympathetic smile. “Well, I hope you find him soon, ma’am,” she said and walked away. She picked up what she needed, including a nice bottle of wine, paid for her purchase, and then went home to relax.

Some of y'all may remember this piece from the Purge on NS. If you don't, well, food and drink warning y'all. ~Jade

“Help wanted. Apply at Bluebell’s Bakery.”

I sighed. I really didn’t want to work at another bakery, but maybe this time would be different. Gathering up my things, I headed into town to see if Bluebell’s would hire me. If they didn’t, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Being a veteran with full-blown PTSD didn’t earn you any favors in the civilian world, I’d found out. No, you were looked at like a loaded gun, a bomb waiting to go off. I’d already been turned down for every LEO and security gig I’d found. Now it was time to look at jobs outside my skill levels.

The bakery was downtown, taking up residence in one of the older buildings that I liked. My first look at it was reassuring; whoever ran it was creative but very clean, something I appreciated.

“Hey there! Something I can get for you?”

I turned to the sound of the woman’s voice, and a smile formed. If anyone ever defined the term “hippy”, it would be this woman. And considering my parents had been hippies, I was okay with that. Her wildly-colored top and skirt coupled with the brightly-colored scarf that held up her hair was refreshing. “I’m actually here about the ad in the paper,” I told her.

“Oh, wonderful!” she cried, putting her hands together. “I’m Bluebell – this is my bakery, and I think you’ll do just fine!”

“But you haven’t asked me any questions,” I said, confused.

“Oh, honey, there’s nothing to this, just trust me,” she soothed, taking my arm. “Here, come with me and I’ll show you what you’ll be doing.”

I had to admit, she was right. She had me taking care of the front while she took care of the back. Her customers were all friendly, even to someone like me, and that set me at ease also.

And boy, did she have customers.

Bluebell’s baked goods were wildly popular with the townspeople, and I couldn’t help making a joke one evening when we were closing up. “Do you put crack in your stuff or what?” I teased. “I’ve never seen so many people in and out the door, even on a Monday.”

Bluebell laughed loudly. “No, actually everything I use is organic,” she explained. “Organic just tastes better, in my opinion. Plus I keep a decent selection of gluten-free items for those with celiac disease – along with those who think they have it, of course.”

I had to admit after she pushed a huge chocolate muffin on me one day, she had a point about the organic thing. That was the best muffin I’d ever eaten in my life.

Bluebell’s best-selling item, though, was her sourdough bread. People came in from neighboring towns just to get her sourdough, making special trips just for a loaf of that bread.

She had offered me a slice one day, but I had declined. I wasn’t much of a bread fan to start with, and sourdough smelled funny to me. I was happy to try her muffins, cookies, and other pastries, but the sourdough I always said no to. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt her feelings.

“So, honey, what was the first job you ever had?” she asked one evening.

“I worked security at the oldest bakery in town,” I replied. “They tore it down now, but it was way out on the other side of town, nestled against the woods.”

“Oh, I remember that bakery!” she cried, her eyes lighting up. “They used real fruit! Their strawberry jam tarts were my favorite!”

I had to turn away at those words, the memory of how the tarts had been made one night surfacing and causing me to give an involuntary shudder. “Yeah, that was it,” I confirmed, adding, “it was creepy working during shutdown though.” She didn’t need to know the real reason I’d shuddered.

She did eventually find out I was ex-military, and contrary to how I’d thought she’d react, she was more than understanding. In fact, she taught me a few tricks and techniques for when I felt the panic start to set in. Bluebell was quite a woman, I had to admit. She was well-rounded, with a brain in her head that she utilized to its full potential.

The weekend rolled around, and I was kept busy bagging up pastries and bread for her customers while she stayed busy in the back trying to keep up with demand. When the lull came, I thought I’d go in the back and see if she needed a hand with anything – the door had a loud chime, so I’d hear it. But when I pushed the door open, my eyes met with a sight that I didn’t know quite how to process.

Bluebell had one leg up on a chair by the table she used to mix and prep, and as I stood there silently watching in confusion, she withdrew a small spoon-like object from under her skirt to stir into the mix she was making.

What the hell is she …. oh, God. I backed out quickly and quietly to go back to the register, swallowing hard to keep from retching. I now knew the secret to her sourdough bread, and I was thankful I had never eaten any. Bluebell was using her own yeast to make it with.

By the time she came out to check on me, a smile on her face, I was back under control. “Well, I’ve got five big batches of my sourdough proofing now, and the rest of the previous batch in the oven, so we should be okay until tomorrow,” she told me.

“That’s good,” I said, mustering up a smile for her. “Hey, do you use the same base for all the baked goods, or are they all different?”

“Everything except the sourdough has the same base ingredients,” she told me, and relief flooded through me at those words. “My sourdough is special.”

You can say that again, I thought to myself.

Because I really did like Bluebell, despite her … unusual bread-making … I stayed on and kept my mouth shut.

But eventually there came a day when the ingredients of her sourdough were discovered – she’d accidentally put a pubic hair in with her special ingredients, and the health inspector was called out. They took samples of the mix to a lab, and yeah. So, Bluebell’s Bakery was closed down for good, and Bluebell went to jail.

I found myself jobless again, but the local butcher’s shop put up a sign and I decided to try my luck there.

Mama Xochi made damn sure I learned to be a good witch. So on top of the workload from taking AP classes, she added lessons for me to learn more about the old ways.

Mama Xochi lived in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. You all may know that Juarez has the highest rate of crime against women. It is the reason why Mama Xochi is a hard ass. She knows how to survive.

I learned from Mama Xochi all about how to work with the earth, the elements, what energy is and how to manipulate it. Of course I was taught the basic ass hechizos too. She also taught me how to respect the forces I worked with. I didn’t know how powerful she was until she trained me.

During my school breaks, I underwent pretty difficult trials. Mama Xochi and the unknown forces tested me. But I never backed down. Mama Xochi instilled strength in me.

But there was one figure that she hid form me. Mama Xochi said this figure will come when I am ready or when I am in need.

Fast forward to two years, and I’m finally in college. No one tells you how to act in college, especially at a prestigious school such as UCLA. People give you weird looks if you walk around with giant hoop earrings with your wild untamed curly hair being all over the place.

I’m also a really outspoken person, with my hood ass accent. I was told to change it. I told them to fuck off.

Under that facade though, I developed anxiety. A lot of it.

Professors HATED me. Because I knew I had a big ass mouth, I decided to double major in Poli Sci and Latin American Studies. I spoke on the injustices and oppression brown and black people go through. The classism. The elitism. The sexism. The assaults that were swept under the rug that were done on military women.

Professors knew I was gonna talk shit every time I went to class.

One of Latin American Studies professor pulled me to the side.

“Mija, I love the content you bring to the class discussion. But I need you to take it back a notch. Especially in your Poli Sci classes. My office is right next to the Poli Sci department and all they talk about is some loud mouth Latina making their students uncomfortable.” She said, her concerned brown eyes boring into my hazel ones.

“Dr. Flores-Corral, I understand your concern. But if anyone is threatened by me, then they need to step the fuck up and tell me.” I shot back, rolling my eyes as I started gathering my stuff. “I wasn’t raised to be meek and quiet.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder and sighed. “At a school like this, you have to play by their rules. I see a bright future for you. I love your passion. Your enthusiasm. But you need to learn to play along, and once you’re in, you fuck them over. Me entiendes?”

I shrugged, and then left to my dorm. She was one of the few professors that had my best interests at heart.

The next day in my Diversity and Disagreement class, I felt a sudden shift of energy. I was feeling uncomfortable, and didn’t participate in class as I usually do.

He placed his hand on my shoulder, an act that sent shivers down my body. “Are you ok? You weren’t participating in class.”

I made an effort to not make a face. “Yes! I wanted to listen instead.”

Dr. Jones chuckled. “Well yes. But of course you should still participate. Not only are you very beautiful, but you have a lot of ideas that need to heard.” His hand slid down to my ass. He then pushed me against the desk.

I fought the urge to beat the shit out of him. I gripped my knuckles. “Dr. Jones, I do not appreciate you touching me. If you ever so dare touch me again, I will be sure to report this incident. I’m giving you a chance to walk way right now.”

He laughed again. “Oh my dear, don’t you know that they will never listen to you? A poor Mexican girl coming from the streets? You have no merit. NOTHING! But I do. I have given money to this godforsaken school and they don’t want me to go away.”

I will leave this part out. It was fucking devastating, what he did to me. I fought as much as I could but even then, it wasn't enough.

After he was done, I ran out of the classroom and back to my dorm.

Yet, I crumbled. I cried. It was my first semester. I had no close friends. Mama Xochi was in Mexico, visiting her sister in Tijuana so I couldn’t reach her. I cried myself to sleep.

A knock sounded on my door, stirring me from my sleep. “Who is it?” I called sleepily, putting on some black sweats and a henley sweater.

An official looking man was outside of my door. “Esperanza Gonzalez-Palma?”

“Yes that’s me.” I responded, narrowing my eyes a bit.

“There was a complaint issued against you. Apparently Dr. Michael Jones said you assaulted him. Is that true?”

My mouth dropped open. Pinche sanguijuela!

“That’s not fucking true. He assaulted me!” I countered.

The man sighed, handing me papers. “Miss Esperanza, that is a powerful accusation. You did not report it to the Title IX office. I cannot take this report. I am only the messenger.” And with that, he left my dorm.

I slammed the door and cried. “Stupid fucking pedazo de animal! Taking away the most important thing from me! FUCK THIS DAMN SYSTEM!”

All these feelings overwhelmed me. This darkness just swallowed me up, causing me to do things I don’t do.

Grabbing my razor, I put it to my legs, pressing the blade to the skin.

That day was the first time I have ever harmed myself.

I was in hysterics m. I used to pray to God for help. But He didn’t listen to me. Why? I was a good girl. I had straight A’s. I worked in my community with love and compassion. Why did He leave me behind?

So I cursed Him. Asking for help from whoever would listen.

As I was a sobbing mess, I felt a pair of gentle hands caressing my hair.

Mija. Tranquila. Come to me.

The voice was soft and mother-like. Similar to Mama Xochi but ancient.

I have felt your pain before mi querida. Many others have called on me. Especially los chiquitos. You, mija, are very special. Xochitil, tu mama Xochi, is my priestess. She has brought justice to many in Juarez. Especially those that involved children.

Warmth instantly filled my body as I leaned into the touch. I knew who she was.

I lifted up my head to look at who was comforting me.

She was a beautiful sight to behold. Her eyes were black, with dark as midnight hair covered by the black lace veil she wore. Her hands were skeletal, but felt warm to the touch. The rest of her body was covered in robes.

La Santa Muerte.

I immediately got into a kneeling position.

“Santisma Muerte, me perdonas por favor for the state you found me in.” Embarrassment was not the right word to find. I was ashamed.

A soft chuckle filled the room.

Ay niñita. Sometimes we need help. You can’t always be strong all the time. It takes a lot out of you. Now nena, let yourself rest. I will stay with you until you feel better. And I also think you will find hope in this situation.

I got into my bed, and she sat beside me, stroking my hair. It felt nice and warmth once again washed over me.

Tomorrow, we will teach that man fear. Real fear. And he will never touch you or anyone else again.

The next morning, I woke up to a weird feeling. I got out of bed and saw my reflection. The sight of myself in the mirror shocked the hell out of me.

My scars were healed. But my eyes became a dark jade color. I knew my ass had some green to my eyes but not like this.

Tonight we will act out his punishment.He will know justice.

Nightfall came. The moon shone through the usual smog in LA. I knew it was time for Dr. Jones to pay his penance.

I sat in my room at night, after going out for a brief walk.

Nena, ya vamos. Tonight he will learn.

I closed my eyes as I felt myself being whisked away. I stood in front of Dr. Jone’s affluent home.

Of course he would be living in Beverly Hills! With his money that’s been up his ass. His home was huge, with black iron gates and a golden fountain.

Again, La Santa Muerte whisked me away once more to his room.

Dr. Jones had a California King bed with a canopy. He had a shitload of pillows, like the psycho he is.

Watch this nena. You will soon learn from me and Mama Xochi to do this.

I suddenly went into a trance. My vision blurred and soon I was in Dr. Jones’ head. He was dreaming that he was in his bed. Weird ass.

He started screaming once he saw me and La Santa Muerte.

“WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

I turned to La Santa Muerte and saw a gruesome figure standing before me. She looked like a decayed corpse with smears all over her. Her smile was just rows of sharp teeth. Her beautiful black hair was falling out in clumps, falling into Dr. Jones’ mouth.

Michael Jones. You are forever cursed for harming women and performing unspeakable actions to them.

Every time you dream, you will relieve their pain.

Every time you think of having sex, your penis will fall off piece by piece.

For every lie you tell, your eyes will lose sight.

And for every student you think of touching again, you will lose your hands.

A large leather whip appeared in La Santa Muerte’s hand.

Y’all, I can’t even describe what she did to him. Aside from the fact she beat the shit out of him. His screams rang out through the night.

Do. Not. Try. Me. You worthlessanimal. And yes, you will wake up to these markings.Oh wait, I have one more surprise.

La Santa Muerte then produced a knife. She slowly lowered it to his abdomen. Slowly and delicately, she carved out the word "rapist".

When she was done, leaving Dr. Jones a sobbing a mess, she turned to me and smiled.

And suddenly, I was back in my room. La Santa Muerte was back in her form that was easy on the eyes.

She drew me to her.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

And it was. I woke up to an email saying the charge was dismissed. And Dr. Jones had to find a sub for the rest of the quarter.